e sincerest regrets at leaving
dear Kate, of the sincerest gratification at this proof of Garda's
attachment, and the sincerest (and most dreadful) apprehensions
concerning the ocean passage.

Garda's second visit at East Angels--a very short one--had terminated
only six weeks before; at that time she had no intention of going to
Italy. This, then, was some sudden new idea, and Lanse had amused
himself imagining causes for it. He imagined them on such a scale of
splendor, however, that Aunt Katrina declared at last that she could
listen to no more of them; they were too ridiculously silly.

She brought herself to listen, however, when, four months later, Betty,
having survived a recrossing of the ocean, came down to East Angels,
with the lion carpet-bag, to tell "everything" to her friend.

Poor Betty had been so homesick in foreign lands that Garda had not had
the heart to detain her longer. "And she said that she had hoped I would
stay with her a long time, perhaps always," narrated Betty. "And of
course I enjoyed being in New York ever so much, of course; and Rome
too--Rome was so instructive. But then you know, as I told the dear
child, Rome is _not_ my home, nor can I make it so at my age, of
course."

"It's not age; it's experience," said Kate.

"Very likely you're right, Kate; but then, you know, I've had so little
experience; since I came from Georgia with Mr. Carew, ever so many years
ago, I've never put my foot outside of Florida until now, and I suppose
I've grown like those Swiss exiles we read about, who can't hear that
call for cows, you know, that Ranz something, without getting _so_
homesick, though to everybody else it's a dreadfully yelling
sound,--though I ought to say, too, that as we've next to no cows in
Florida, the comparison isn't a _very_ good one; but then there were
next to no cows in Rome either, for that matter, though it was there
that a cow brought up little Castor and Pollux, who built the city--no,
no, I'm mistaken, that was Romulus and Remus; Castor and Pollux tamed
the horses on the Quirinal; but in either case it shows that the milk
must have been good, because they were so strong, you know."

"_Are_ we talking of milk, Elizabeth?" asked Kate, in despair.

"Of course not," answered Elizabeth, good-naturedly; "how could you
think so? I know you never cared for milk in the least, Kate, and I
shouldn't be likely, therefore, to bring it up.--And right there in the
Forum I'd see m