t way when I have to visit Dartmouth
for Uncle Ben and for the household provisions. And I am to have
chickens to rear in the spring."

"The Italian--"

"He is a gentleman, Mr. Brendon--a great gentleman, you might say. I
do not understand him very well. But I am safe with him. He would do
nothing base or small. He confided in me when first I came. He then
had a dream to find a rich wife, who would love him and enable him
to restore the castle of the Doria in Italy and build up the family
again. He is full of romance and has such energy and queer, magnetic
power that I can quite believe he will achieve his hopes some day."

"Does he still possess this ambition?"

Jenny was silent for a moment. Her eyes looked out of the window
over the restless sea.

"Why not?" she asked.

"He is, I should think, a man that women might fall in love with."

"Oh, yes--he is amazingly handsome and there are fine thoughts in
him."

Mark felt disposed to warn her but felt that any counsel from him
would be an impertinence. She seemed to read his mind, however.

"I shall never marry again," she said.

"Nobody would dare to ask you to do so--nobody who knows all that
you have been called to suffer. Not for many a long day yet, I
mean," he answered awkwardly.

"You understand," she replied and took his hand impulsively. "There
is a great gulf I think fixed between us Anglo-Saxons and the
Latins. Their minds move far more swiftly than ours. They are more
hungry to get everything possible out of life. Doria is a child in
many ways; but a delightful, poetical child. I think England rather
chills him; yet he vows there are no rich women in Italy. He longs
for Italy all the same. I expect he will go home again presently. He
will leave Uncle Ben in the spring--so he confides to me; but do not
whisper it, for my uncle thinks highly of him and would hate to lose
him. He can do everything and anticipates our wishes and whims in
the most magical way."

"Well, I must not keep you any longer."

"Indeed you are not doing that. I am very, very glad to see you, Mr.
Brendon. You are going to stop for dinner? We always dine in the
middle of the day."

"May I?"

"You must. And tea also. Come up to Uncle Bendigo now. I'll leave
you with him for an hour. Then dinner will be ready. Giuseppe always
joins us. You won't mind?"

"The last of the Doria! I've probably never shared a meal with such
high company!"

She led him up the flight of stai