and and wife had been sojourning there
since their arrival from Egypt, but they had not been his sister's
guests, and she did not now pretend to be of their party, though the
same train, even the same carriage, had brought her to Venice with them.
They went to a hotel, and Miss Milray took lodgings where she always
spent her Junes, before going to the Tyrol for the summer.

"You are wonderfully improved, every way," Mrs. Milray said to
Clementina when they met. "I knew you would be, if Miss Milray took you
in hand; and I can see she has. What she doesn't know about the world
isn't worth knowing! I hope she hasn't made you too worldly? But if
she has, she's taught you how to keep from showing it; you're just as
innocent-looking as ever, and that's the main thing; you oughtn't to
lose that. You wouldn't dance a skirt dance now before a ship's company,
but if you did, no one would suspect that you knew any better. Have you
forgiven me, yet? Well, I didn't use you very well, Clementina, and I
never pretended I did. I've eaten a lot of humble pie for that, my dear.
Did Miss Milray tell you that I wrote to her about it? Of course you
won't say how she told you; but she ought to have done me the justice
to say that I tried to be a friend at court with her for you. If she
didn't, she wasn't fair."

"She neva said anything against you, Mrs. Milray," Clementina answered.

"Discreet as ever, my dear! I understand! And I hope you understand
about that old affair, too, by this time. It was a complication. I had
to get back at Lioncourt somehow; and I don't honestly think now that
his admiration for a young girl was a very wholesome thing for her. But
never mind. You had that Boston goose in Florence, too, last winter,
and I suppose he gobbled up what little Miss Milray had left of me. But
she's charming. I could go down on my knees to her art when she really
tries to finish any one."

Clementina noticed that Mrs. Milray had got a new way of talking. She
had a chirpiness, and a lift in her inflections, which if it was not
exactly English was no longer Western American. Clementina herself in
her association with Hinkle had worn off her English rhythm, and in her
long confinement to the conversation of Mrs. Lander, she had reverted to
her clipped Yankee accent. Mrs. Milray professed to like it, and said
it brought back so delightfully those pleasant days at Middlemount, when
Clementina really was a child. "I met somebody at Cairo, w