is on her finger.
And when the spring comes we are to sail for Italy, for France.

Perhaps we shall never come back. And I am going to give Rosalie all
the loveliness that life can hold for her. Now and then she whispers
that she never knew love until I taught it to her. That what she felt
for Perry was but the echo of his own need of her.

"But I'd tramp the muddy roads with you, Jim Crow."

I wonder if she really means it. I wish with all my heart that I might
know it true. I have never told her of my fears and I believe that I can
make her happy. I shall try not to look too far beyond the days we shall
have in the Louvre and the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. We shall search
for beauty, and perhaps I can teach her to find it, before it is too
late, in the things that count.

PETRONELLA

"If you loved a man, and knew that he loved you, and he wouldn't ask you
to marry him, what would you do?"

The Admiral surveyed his grand-niece thoughtfully. "What do you expect
to do, my dear?"

Petronella stopped on the snowy top step and looked down at him. "Who
said I had anything to do with it?" she demanded.

The Admiral's old eyes twinkled. "Let me come in, and tell me about
it."

Petronella smiled at him over her big muff. "If you'll promise not to
stay after five, I'll give you a cup of tea."

"Who's coming at five?"

The color flamed into Petronella's cheeks. In her white coat and white
furs, with her wind-blown brown hair, her beauty satisfied even the
Admiral's critical survey, and he hastened to follow his question by the
assertion, "Of course I'll come in."

Petronella, with her coat off, showed a slenderness which was enhanced
by the straight lines of her white wool gown, with the long sleeves
fur-edged, and with fur at the top of the high, transparent collar. She
wore her hair curled over her ears and low on her forehead, which made
of her face a small and delicate oval. In the big hall, with a roaring
fire in the wide fireplace, she dispensed comforting hospitality to the
adoring Admiral. And when she had given him his tea she sat on a stool
at his feet. "Oh, wise great-uncle," she said, "I am going to tell you
about the Man!"

"Have I ever seen him?"

"No. I met him in London last year, and--well, you know what a trip home
on shipboard means, with all the women shut up in their cabins, and with
moonlight nights, and nobody on deck--"

"So it was an affair of moonlight and propinquity?"

A