vers Vesuvius; but underneath, all the same, the gleam
of the raging hidden fires below--that was his idea of the "manner."
Owing to the strange lack of discrimination sometimes to be observed in
Fate, Garda had had a northern mother (an estimable woman in herself, of
course); on account of this accident, she had been intrusted for a while
to these strangers. But this would come to an end; these northerners
would go away; they would return to their remote homes and Gracias would
know them no more. Garda, of course, would never consent to go with
them; it was but reasonable to suppose, therefore (they being amiable
people), that they would be pleased to see her make a fit Alliance
before their departure; and there was but one that could be called fit.
It was not improbable, indeed, that the whole had been planned as a test
of his own qualities; they wished to see whether he had equanimity,
endurance. One had to forgive them their ignorance--the doubting whether
or not he possessed these qualities--as one had to forgive them many
other things; they should see, at any rate, how triumphantly he should
issue from their trial.

He now walked down the old road with his usual circumspect gait; he was
with Lucian's wife, whom he always treated with the respect due to an
elderly lady.

Lucian was first, with Garda; he had gathered for her some sprays of
wild blossoms, and these she was combining in various ways as she
walked. She scarcely spoke. But her silence seemed only part of a
supreme indolent content.

Mrs. Spenser was behind with Torres--close behind. Margaret, too, did
not linger; Mr. Moore, who was with her, would have preferred, perhaps,
a less direct advance, a few light expeditions into the neighboring
thickets, for instance; he carried his butterfly pole, and looked about
him scrutinizingly. They were going in search of an old tomb, which
Lucian was to sketch. It was a mysterious old tomb, no one had any idea
who lay there; the ruined mansion they had passed had its own little
burial-ground, standing in a circle of trees like the one at East
Angels; but this old tomb was alone in the woods, isolated and
unaccounted for; there was no trace of a house or any former cultivation
near. Its four stone sides were standing, but the top slab was gone, and
from within--there was no mound--grew a cedar known to be so ancient
that it threw back the lifetime of the person who lay beneath to
unrecorded days; for he must have b