o doubt. He will accept his step-father's offer;
we know that well enough. He ought to have done so a year ago, and our
difficulties would have been lightened. Your father means what he says?"

"Wolf!" cried Barbara, petulantly.

"Well, I can see that the wolf has come at last, in good earnest. My
girl, you'll have to become more serious Barbara, _you_ at all events,
cannot afford to trifle."

"I am no trifler!" cried the enthusiast for Italian unity and
regeneracy.

"Let us have proof of that, then." Mrs. Denyer looked at her meaningly.

"Mother," said Zillah, earnestly, "do let me write to Mrs. Stonehouse,
and beg her to find me a place as nursery governess. I can manage that,
I feel sure."

"I'll think about it, dear. But, Madeline, I insist on your putting an
end to this ridiculous state of things. You will _order_ him to take
the position offered."

"Mother, I can do nothing of the kind. If necessary, I'll go for a
governess as well."

Thereupon Zillah wept, protesting that such desecration was impossible.
The scene prolonged itself to midnight. On the morrow, with the
exception of Mrs. Denyer's resolve to subdue Marsh, all was forgotten,
and the Denyer family pursued their old course, putting off decided
action until there should come another cry of "Wolf!"

CHAPTER IV

MIRIAM'S BROTHER

But for the aid of his wife's more sympathetic insight, Edward Spence
would have continued to interpret Miriam's cheerless frame of mind as a
mere result of impatience at being removed from the familiar scenes of
her religious activity, and of disquietude amid uncongenial
surroundings. "A Puritan at Naples"--that was the phrase which
represented her to his imagination; his liking for the picturesque and
suggestive led him to regard her solely in that light. No strain of
modern humanitarianism complicated Miriam's character. One had not to
take into account a possible melancholy produced by the contrast
between her life of ease in the South, and the squalor of laborious
multitudes under a sky of mill-smoke and English fog. Of the new
philanthropy she spoke, if at all, with angry scorn, holding it to be
based on rationalism, radicalism, positivism, or whatsoever name
embodied the conflict between the children of this world and the
children of light. Far from Miriam any desire to abolish the misery
which was among the divinely appointed conditions of this preliminary
existence. No; she was uncomfortable, and co