e is to be?"

"Is it very severe and humiliating?" I asked.

"You must judge of that. It is--to take me with you!"

"You,--what do you mean?"

"Yes,--not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a fortnight,
just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then to deliver me safe
home again where you found me--"

"But it is impossible," I almost gasped in surprise. "Of course you
are not serious?"

"I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?" she continued
pleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those wonderful
walking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or Stevenson. We are
not allowed to move without a nurse or a footman. From the day we are
born to the day we die, we are never left a moment to ourselves. But
you--you can go out into the world, the mysterious world, do as you
will, go where you will, wander here, wander there, follow any bye-way
that takes your fancy, put up at old inns, make strange acquaintances,
have all kinds of romantic experiences-- Oh, to be a man for a
fortnight, your younger brother for a fortnight!"

"It is impossible!" I repeated.

"It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will only
be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have only
to write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit of
clothes,--with a little managing yours would just fit me, you're not so
much taller,--and then we could start, like two comrades, seeking
adventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!"

It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to bear
upon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain.

I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents.

Weren't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and weren't they to go
on drinking them for another three weeks? My fancy made a picture of
them distended with three weeks' absorption of mineral springs. Then
there was her companion. Nicolete was confident of her assistance.
Then I tried vilifying myself. How could she run the risk of trusting
herself to such intimate companionship with a man whom she hadn't known
half a dozen hours? This she laughed to scorn. Presently I was silent
from sheer lack of further objections; and need I say that all the
while there had been a traitor impulse in my heart, a weak sweetness
urging me on to accept the pretty chance which the good genius of my
pilgrimage had so evidently put in my way,--for, after all,