ou'd be glad enough to
have me sta't, now the'e's nobody he'e but me," she added, suspiciously.
"You git this scheme up, or him?"

Clementina did not defend herself, and Mrs. Lander presently came to
her defence. "I don't believe but what he meant it fo' the best--or you,
whichever it was, and I appreciate it; but all is I couldn't git off.
I guess this aia will do me as much good as anything, come to have it a
little coola."

They went every afternoon to the Lido, where a wheeled chair met them,
and Mrs. Lander was trundled across the narrow island to the beach. In
the evenings they went to the Piazza, where their faces and figures had
become known, and the Venetians gossipped them down to the last fact
of their relation with an accuracy creditable to their ingenuity in the
affairs of others. To them Mrs. Lander was the sick American, very rich,
and Clementina was her adoptive daughter, who would have her millions
after her. Neither knew the character they bore to the amiable and
inquisitive public of the Piazza, or cared for the fine eyes that aimed
their steadfast gaze at them along the tubes of straw-barreled Virginia
cigars, or across little cups of coffee. Mrs. Lander merely remarked
that the Venetians seemed great for gaping, and Clementina was for the
most part innocent of their stare.

She rested in the choice she had made in a content which was qualified
by no misgiving. She was sorry for Gregory, when she remembered him; but
her thought was filled with some one else, and she waited in faith and
patience for the answer which should come to the letter she had written.
She did not know where her letter would find him, or when she should
hear from him; she believed that she should hear, and that was enough.
She said to herself that she would not lose hope if no answer came for
months; but in her heart she fixed a date for the answer by letter, and
an earlier date for some word by cable; but she feigned that she did not
depend upon this; and when no word came she convinced herself that she
had not expected any.

It was nearing the end of the term which she had tacitly given her lover
to make the first sign by letter, when one morning Mrs. Lander woke her.
She wished to say that she had got the strength to leave Venice at
last, and she was going as soon as their trunks could be packed. She had
dressed herself, and she moved about restless and excited. Clementina
tried to reason her out of her haste; but she irr