e postman set my heart a-throbbing, as though the
missive were a sentence on me! Why cannot I have peace like this?"

"Poverty has no peace, my dear Loo. It is the poorest of all wars, for
it is the pettiest of all objects. It would break my heart to see you
engaged in such a conflict."

And the Captain suffered his eyes to range over the handsome room and
its fine furniture, while his thoughts wandered to a French cook, and
that delicious "Chateau Margaux" he had tasted yesterday.

Did she read what was passing in his mind, as, with a touch of scorn in
her manner, she said, "Doubtless you know the world better," and left
the room?

CHAPTER XLIX. THE PALAZZO BALBI

The household of the Palazzo Balbi was unusually busy and active. There
was a coming and a parting guest. Sir William himself was far too much
occupied by the thoughts of his son's arrival to bestow much interest
upon the departure of Captain Holmes. Not that this ingenious gentleman
had failed in any of the requirements of his parasitical condition,
nay, he had daily improved the occasion of his presence, and ingratiated
himself considerably in the old Baronet's favor; but it is, happily, the
lot of such people to be always forgotten where the real affections
are in play. They while away a weary day, they palliate the small
irritations of daily life, they suggest devices to cheat ennui, but they
have no share in deeper sentiments; we neither rejoice nor weep with
them.

"Sorry for your friend's illness!"--"Sincerely trust you may find him
better!"--or, "Ah, it is a lady, I forgot; and that we may soon see you
on this side of the Alps again!"--"Charming weather for your journey!
"--"Good-bye, good-bye!"

And with this he shook his hand cordially enough, and forgot him.

"I'm scarcely sorry he's gone," said May, "he was _so_ deaf! And
besides, papa, he was too civil,--too complaisant. I own I had become a
little impatient of his eternal compliments, and the small scraps out of
Shelley and Keats that he adapted to my address."

"All the better for Charley, that," said the old Baronet "You'll
bear his rough frankness with more forgiveness after all this sugary
politeness." He never noticed how this random speech sent the blood to
her cheeks, and made her crimson over face and neck; nor, indeed, had
he much time to bestow on it, for the servant opened the door at the
instant, and announced, "Captain Heathcote." In a moment the son was in
his fath