alf so much about it."

"The best place we've seen is the City of Richmond!" said Randolph.

"He means the ship," his mother explained. "We crossed in that ship.
Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond."

"It's the best place I've seen," the child repeated. "Only it was turned
the wrong way."

"Well, we've got to turn the right way some time," said Mrs. Miller with
a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at
least found some gratification in Rome, and she declared that Daisy
was quite carried away. "It's on account of the society--the society's
splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of
acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I do. I must say they
have been very sociable; they have taken her right in. And then she
knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there's nothing like Rome.
Of course, it's a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows
plenty of gentlemen."

By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne. "I've
been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!" the young girl announced.

"And what is the evidence you have offered?" asked Winterbourne, rather
annoyed at Miss Miller's want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer
who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at
Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He
remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American
women--the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom--were at
once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense
of indebtedness.

"Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey," said Daisy. "You wouldn't do
anything. You wouldn't stay there when I asked you."

"My dearest young lady," cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, "have I
come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?"

"Just hear him say that!" said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a
bow on this lady's dress. "Did you ever hear anything so quaint?"

"So quaint, my dear?" murmured Mrs. Walker in the tone of a partisan of
Winterbourne.

"Well, I don't know," said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker's ribbons. "Mrs.
Walker, I want to tell you something."

"Mother-r," interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words, "I
tell you you've got to go. Eugenio'll raise--something!"

"I'm not afraid of Eugenio," said Daisy with a toss of her head. "Look
here, Mrs. Walker," she went on, "you know I'm coming