tself. "You'll undastand,
now," she said. "What shall I do?"

When he had read it, he smiled and answered, "I guess I understood
pretty well before, though I wasn't posted on names. Well, I suppose
you'll want to layout most of your capital on cables, now?"

"Yes," she laughed, and then she suddenly lamented, "Why didn't they
telegraph?"

"Well, I guess he hadn't the head for it," said the vice-consul, "and
the rest wouldn't think of it. They wouldn't, in the country."

Clementina laughed again; in joyous recognition of the fact, "No, my
fatha wouldn't, eitha!"

The vice-consul reached for his hat, and he led the way to Clementina's
gondola at his garden gate, in greater haste than she. At the telegraph
office he framed a dispatch which for expansive fullness and precision
was apparently unexampled in the experience of the clerk who took it
and spelt over its English with them. It asked an answer in the
vice-consul's care, and, "I'll tell you what, Miss Claxon," he said with
a husky weakness in his voice, "I wish you'd let this be my treat."

She understood. "Do you really, Mr. Bennam?"

"I do indeed."

"Well, then, I will," she said, but when he wished to include in his
treat the dispatch she sent home to her father announcing her coming,
she would not let him.

He looked at his watch, as they rowed away. "It's eight o'clock here,
now, and it will reach Ohio about six hours earlier; but you can't
expect an answer tonight, you know."

"No"--She had expected it though, he could see that.

"But whenever it comes, I'll bring it right round to you. Now it's all
going to be straight, don't you be afraid, and you're going home the
quickest way you can get there. I've been looking up the sailings, and
this Genoa boat will get you to New York about as soon as any could from
Liverpool. Besides there's always a chance of missing connections and
losing time between here and England. I should stick to the Genoa boat."

"Oh I shall," said Clementina, far less fidgetted than he. She was,
in fact, resting securely again in the faith which had never really
deserted her, and had only seemed for a little time to waver from her
when her hope went. Now that she had telegraphed, her heart was at
peace, and she even laughed as she answered the anxious vice-consul.

XXXVI.

The next morning Clementina watched for the vice-consul from her
balcony. She knew he would not send; she knew he would come; but it, was
nearly no