tioned
upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman,
seated; her companion was standing in front of her.

Presently the sound of the woman's voice came to him distinctly in the
warm night air. "Well, he looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers
may have looked at the Christian martyrs!" These were the words he
heard, in the familiar accent of Miss Daisy Miller.

"Let us hope he is not very hungry," responded the ingenious Giovanelli.
"He will have to take me first; you will serve for dessert!"

Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror, and, it must be added, with
a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed
upon the ambiguity of Daisy's behavior, and the riddle had become easy
to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be
at pains to respect. He stood there, looking at her--looking at her
companion and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself
must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he
had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller.
Then, as he was going to advance again, he checked himself, not from the
fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger
of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated by this sudden revulsion from
cautious criticism. He turned away toward the entrance of the place,
but, as he did so, he heard Daisy speak again.

"Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne! He saw me, and he cuts me!"

What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played at
injured innocence! But he wouldn't cut her. Winterbourne came forward
again and went toward the great cross. Daisy had got up; Giovanelli
lifted his hat. Winterbourne had now begun to think simply of the
craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl
lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she WERE
a clever little reprobate? that was no reason for her dying of the
perniciosa. "How long have you been here?" he asked almost brutally.

Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked at him a moment.
Then--"All the evening," she answered, gently. * * * "I never saw
anything so pretty."

"I am afraid," said Winterbourne, "that you will not think Roman fever
very pretty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder," he added,
turning to Giovanelli, "that you, a native Roman, should countenance
such a terrible indiscretion."

"Ah," said the handsome native, "fo