"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on,
"particularly after last night, when you were so very--amusing." She
hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the
adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.

"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I
am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic.
Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel
unawares."

"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she
retorted, getting rather provoked.

"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact
that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die
for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If
you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now--here." And he settled
himself deeper into the pile of cushions.

We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our
duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had
returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but
she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in
such a hopeless cause again.

I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he
wished us _buon viaggio_. When we reached the top, we made out his
figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."

He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave
of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the
telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the
mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one
word. "Yes, I know--it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to
rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week _en
penitence_, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."

We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the
Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed
to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for
hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool
soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him
now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.

It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither
pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a
man with such r