ttle
off her base towards the last. That's the charitable supposition."

"I don't think she was herself, some of the time," Clementina assented
in acceptance of the kindly construction.

The vice-consul modified his good will toward Mrs. Lander's memory so
far as to say, "Well, if she'd been somebody else most of the time, it
would have been an improvement."

The talk turned upon Mr. Orson, and what he would probably do. The
vice-consul had found him a cheap lodging, at his request, and he seemed
to have settled down at Venice either without the will or without the
power to go home, but the vice-consul did not know where he ate, or what
he did with himself except at the times when he came for letters.
Once or twice when he looked him up he found him writing, and then the
minister explained that he had promised to "correspond" for an organ of
his sect in the Northwest; but he owned that there was no money in it.
He was otherwise reticent and even furtive in his manner. He did not
seem to go much about the city, but kept to his own room; and if he was
writing of Venice it must have been chiefly from his acquaintance
with the little court into which his windows looked. He affected the
vice-consul as forlorn and helpless, and he pitied him and rather liked
him as a fellow-victim of Mrs. Lander.

One morning Mr. Orson came to see Clementina, and after a brief passage
of opinion upon the weather, he fell into an embarrassed silence from
which he pulled himself at last with a visible effort. "I hardly know
how to lay before you what I have to say, Miss Claxon," he began, "and
I must ask you to put the best construction upon it. I have never been
reduced to a similar distress before. You would naturally think that I
would turn to the vice-consul, on such an occasion; but I feel, through
our relation to the--to Mrs. Lander--ah--somewhat more at home with
you."

He stopped, as if he wished to be asked his business, and she entreated
him, "Why, what is it, Mr. Osson? Is there something I can do? There
isn't anything I wouldn't!"

A gleam, watery and faint, which still could not be quite winked away,
came into his small eyes. "Why, the fact is, could you--ah--advance me
about five dollars?"

"Why, Mr. Orson!" she began, and he seemed to think she wished to
withdraw her offer of help, for he interposed.

"I will repay it as soon as I get an expected remittance from home.
I came out on the invitation of Mrs. Lander, and as