Читать книгу Dorothy, and Other Italian Stories - Woolson Constance Fenimore - Страница 4

ON the 29th of December of this same year, 1882, Reginald Illingsworth was paying a visit to Mrs. Sebright.

"What a career that little girl will have!" he said, with deep gustatory appreciation.

Before this, for half an hour, he had been making remarks of a nature best described by the following examples: "That excellent fellow, Mackenzie! You can't think how I miss him!" "There is something so tragic in such a death – a man who had everything to live for!" "How could they go to Rome! That pernicious Roman fever is the curse of Italy." "Those poor ladies! Directly I heard they had returned to Belmonte, I went up at once to inquire and to leave cards; it is a stricken house!" Having said everything that decorum required, he now finally allowed himself to bring out the thought which was in reality filling his mind: "What a career that little girl will have! Only nineteen, and so very pretty, so charming. He has left her everything without a condition (save in the event – most improbable at her age – of her dying without children, in which case it goes back to his own relatives), and I am told that he had nearly eight millions of dollars; that is, one million six hundred thousand pounds! They are shrewd in their American way – those ladies; Mrs. North is very shrewd. And mark my words, madam, that little girl will make one of the great matches yet; not pinchbeck; something really good!" (His "good" had a deeply solid sound.)

This same afternoon the following words were exchanged in another quarter of Florence:

"Rose, dear," said Miss Jane Wood, "you will go up again to-morrow, won't you, to see poor Dorothy?"

"I have been twice – all that is necessary for appearances, Aunt Jane. Why should I bother Dorothy now?"

"Sympathy – " began Miss Jane.

"Sympathy! She is in a position to extend it to me. I think she is the very luckiest girl I have ever heard of in my life. All another girl can do in the face of such luck as that is to keep away from it, and not think about it – if she can."

Miss Jane Wood: "I am astonished!"

Miss Maria: "!!!!"

That evening, at Belmonte, Dorothy walked and walked about the drawing-room; now she stopped at a table, took up something and put it down again; now she moved a statuette to another position; now she gazed at the etchings on the wall as though she had never seen them before; now she added pine-cones to the already blazing fire, kneeling on the rug with the hot flame scorching her face; finally she went to the window, and, parting the curtains, stood looking out. It was a dark night without stars; in addition to the freezing temperature, the wind was fierce; it drove furiously against the windows of the villa, it came round the corner of the tower with a shriek like that of a banshee.

"It's dreadfully cold," said the girl at last, as if speaking to herself.

"Surely not here?" replied Mrs. Tracy. Dorothy came wandering back to the fire, and then the aunt drew her down by her side. "Dear child, don't keep thinking of Rome," she whispered. "He is not there; there is nothing there but the lifeless clay." And she kissed her.

"Try not to be so restless, Dorothy," said Mrs. North, from her warm corner. "You have walked about this room all day."

"It's because I'm so tired; I am so tired that I cannot keep still," Dorothy answered.

"I think a change would be a good thing for all of us," Mrs. North went on. "We could go to Cannes for two months; we could be as quiet at Cannes as here."

Dorothy looked at her with vague eyes, as if waiting to hear more.

"It is warmer there. And then there is the sea – to look at, you know," pursued Mrs. North, seeing that she was called upon to exhibit attractions.

"Egypt would be my idea," said Mrs. Tracy. "A dahabeeyah on the Nile, Dorothy. Camels; temples."

Dorothy listened, as if rather struck by this idea also.

"But Egypt would be a fearful trouble, Charlotte," objected Mrs. North. "Who is going to get a good dahabeeyah for us at this time of year?"

"Don't spoil it. I'll get twenty," responded the other lady.

And then there was a silence.

"Well, Dorothy, are you going to leave it to us to decide?"

"Yes, mamma," Dorothy answered. Her eyes had grown dull again; she sat listening to the wind as if she had forgotten what they were talking about.

"It's decided, then. We will go to Cannes," remarked Mrs. North, serenely.

Her Aunt Charlotte's discomfited face drew a sudden laugh from the niece. And this laughter, once begun, did not cease; peal succeeded peal, and Dorothy threw herself back on the cushions of the sofa, overcome with merriment. Mrs. North glanced towards the doors to see if they were well closed. But Charlotte Tracy was so glad to hear the sound again that she did not care about comments from the servants; Dorothy's face, dull and tired, above the dead black of the widow's attire, had been like a nightmare to her.

They went to Cannes. And Mrs. North's suggested "two months" had now lengthened, in her plans, to three. But before two weeks, had passed they were again at Belmonte.

"Now that we have made one fiasco, Charlotte, and taken that horrible journey, all tunnels, twice within twenty days, we must not make another; we must decide to remain where we are for the present. If Dorothy grows restless again, be firm. Be firm, as I shall be."

"Surely we ought to be indulgent to her now, Laura?"

"Not too much so. Otherwise we shall be laying up endless bother for ourselves. For we have a year of hourly employment before us, day by day. In the way of seeing to her, I mean."

"She will not make us the least trouble," said Mrs. Tracy, indignantly.

"I am not finding fault with her. But she cannot help her age, can she? She is exceedingly young to be a widow, and she has a large fortune; but for a year, at any rate, if I know myself, gossip shall not touch my daughter."

"A year? I'll guarantee ten," said Mrs. Tracy, still indignant.

"I don't care about ten; three will do. Yes, I see you looking at me with outraged eyes. But there's no need. I liked Alan as much as you did; I appreciated every one of his good points. With all that, you cannot pretend to say that you believe Dorothy really loved him. She was too young to love anybody. The love was on his side, and you were as much surprised as I was when she took a fancy to accept it."

Mrs. Tracy could not deny this. But she belonged to that large class of women who, from benevolent motives, never acknowledge unwelcome facts. "I think you are perfectly horrid!" she said.

Dorothy, back at Belmonte, was troublesome only in the sense of being always in motion. Having exhausted the garden, she began to explore the country. She went to Galileo's tower; to the lonely little church of Santa Margherita; the valley of the Ema knew her slender black figure. Once she crossed the Greve, and, following the old Etruscan road, climbed to the top of the height beyond, where stands the long, blank Shameless Villa outlined against the sky.

"Do you know, I am afraid I am lame," said Mrs. Tracy, the morning after this long tramp to the Shameless.

"Well, why do you go? One of us is enough," answered Mrs. North.

To the walks Dorothy now added lessons in German and Italian. Mrs. North drove down to Florence and engaged Fräulein Bernstein and Mademoiselle Scarletti. Next, Dorothy said that she wished to take lessons in music.

"A good idea. You ought to play much better than you do," said her mother.

"Piano; but singing too, please," Dorothy answered.

Again Mrs. North descended to Florence; Fräulein Lundborg was engaged for instrumental music, and Madame Farinelli for vocal. Dorothy wished to have a lesson each day from each of her teachers. "It's a perfect procession up and down this hill!" thought Mrs. Tracy. There was a piano in the billiard-room, and another in the drawing-room; but now Dorothy wished to have a third piano in her own sitting-room up-stairs.

"But, my dear, what an odd fancy! Are you going to sing there by yourself?" her mother inquired.

"Yes!" said Dorothy.

"Do you think she is well?" asked Mrs. Tracy, confidentially, with some anxiety.

"Perfectly well. It is the repressed life she is leading," Mrs. North answered. "But we must make the best of it. This is as good a place as any for the next three months."

But again this skilful directress was forced to abandon the "good place." Early in March, when the almond-trees were in bloom, Dorothy, coming in from the garden, announced, "I hate Belmonte! Let us go away, mamma – anywhere. Let us start to-morrow."

"We took you to Cannes, and you did not wish to stay. We shall be leaving Belmonte in any case in June; that isn't long to wait."

"You like Paris; will you go to Paris?" the girl went on.

"What can you do in Paris more than you do here?"

"I love the streets, they are so bright – so many people. Oh, mamma, if you could only know how dull I am!" And sinking down on the rug, Dorothy laid her face on the sofa-cushion at her mother's side.

Mrs. Tracy coming in and finding her thus, bent and felt her pulse.

"Yes, one hundred and fifty!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Take me to Paris, and to the opera or theatre every night, and it will go down."

"Oh, you don't mean that," said the aunt, assuringly.

"Yes, but I do," Dorothy answered. And then, with her cheek still resting on the cushion, she looked up at her mother. "You will take me, mamma, won't you? If I tell you that I must?"

"Yes," replies Mrs. North, coldly.

They went to Paris. And then, for four weeks, almost every night at the back of a box at the opera or at one of the theatres were three ladies in mourning attire, the youngest of the three in widow's weeds. Mrs. Tracy was so perturbed during these weeks that her face was constantly red.

"Why are you so worried?" Mrs. North inquired. "I manage it perfectly; people don't in the least know."

"Do I care for 'people'? It's – it's – " But she would not say "It's Dorothy." "It's ourselves," she finally ended.

"Always sentimental," said Laura.

Midway in the first week of April, Dorothy suddenly changed again. "I can't stay here a moment longer!" she said.

"Perhaps you would like to take a trip round the world?" suggested Mrs. North, with a touch of sarcasm.

"No. I don't know what you will say, mamma, but I should like to go back to Belmonte."

"I have a good deal of patience, my dear, but I must say that you wear it out."

"I know I do; but if you will take me back, I promise to stay there this time as long as you like."

"I like – " began Mrs. North; but Dorothy, with a frown, had rushed out of the room.

"What shall we do now?" said the aunt.

"Go back, I suppose; I have always thought Belmonte the best place up to really hot weather. One good thing: if we do go back we can take the opportunity to rid ourselves definitely of both of those villas. My idea is the Black Forest country for August and September. Then we could come here again for a few weeks. For the winter, what do you say to a long cruise towards the South somewhere, in a yacht of our own? We could select the right people to go with us."

They returned to Italy, reaching Bellosguardo again on the 11th of April.

On the 6th of May Charlotte Tracy said, "Laura, to me this is dreadful! Waddy is here morning, noon, and night."

"So many people have left Florence that it hardly matters; nobody knows what is going on up here. He amuses her, and that is something gained."

"I wish he wouldn't be forever singing!" said the aunt, irritably.

"He sings very well. And Dorothy has shown a new interest in singing lately. Don't you remember that she took lessons herself before we went to Paris?"

"You don't mean to intimate that Waddy had anything to do with that?"

"Why not? A girl of that age has all sorts of changing interests and tastes; there will be something new every month or two, probably, for a long time yet."

In June, Mrs. Tracy demanded, "Is Owen Charrington one of your something-news?"

"I dare say he is," Mrs. North answered, smiling.

For Owen Charrington had come back from Australia. He found the zigzags which led to Belmonte very hot and very solitary; there was no Waddy going up or coming down, either on foot or in a carriage, although his ascents and descents had been as regular as those of the postman during the six preceding weeks. Shortly before Charrington's return, Dorothy, entering the boudoir one evening at ten o'clock, said:

"Mamma – Aunt Charlotte – will you tell the servants, please, that whenever Mr. Brunetti calls, after this, they are to say that we are engaged, or not at home? I don't suppose you care to see him?"

"What can have happened?" said Mrs. Tracy, when the girl had gone out again without explanation.

"There hasn't been time for much to happen. I have been out there with them all the evening; I only came in for my tea," answered Mrs. North, sipping that beverage.

"Since then he has been singing. At least, I thought I heard his voice – not very loud."

"Perhaps she is tired of his voice – not very loud."

Mrs. Tracy threw a lace scarf over her head and went out to the garden. The long aisles under the trees were flooded with moonlight, the air was perfumed with the fragrance of the many flowers; but there was no Dorothy. She entered the house by another door, and, going softly up the great stairway, turned towards Dorothy's rooms at the south end of the long villa. Here a light was visible, coming under the door of the sitting-room; the aunt did not lift the latch, she stood outside listening. Yes, Dorothy was there, and she was singing to herself in a low tone, playing the accompaniment with the soft pedal down:

"She is up there singing; singing all alone," reported the aunt, when she came back to the boudoir down-stairs.

"I suppose you like that better than not alone?" suggested Mrs. North.

Waddy came to Belmonte five times without success. Then he left Florence.

Dorothy did not stroll in the garden with Owen Charrington. If her mother and aunt were outside when he came, she remained with them there; but if they were in the drawing-room or the boudoir, she immediately led her guest within; then she sat looking at him while he talked. Charrington talked well; all he said was amusing. Dorothy listened and laughed. If he paused, she urged him on again. This urgency of hers became so apparent that at last it embarrassed him. To carry it off he attacked her:

"You force me to chatter, Mrs. Mackenzie – to chatter like a parrot!"

"Yes," answered Dorothy, "you must talk; you must talk all the time."

"'All the time' – awfully funny Americanism!"

"And the French 'tout le temps'?"

"Oh, French; I don't know about French."

"Of course you don't. We are willing to be funny with the French. Are you 'very pleased' to be here to-day? Answer."

"Of course I am very pleased."

"And you would say, wouldn't you, 'Directly I returned to Florence, I bought a horse'?"

"But I didn't," said Charrington, laughing; "I only hired one. And that reminds me, Mrs. Mackenzie; you can't think how divine it is now at four o'clock in the morning. Won't you go for a ride at that hour some day soon? Mrs. North and Mrs. Tracy could follow in the carriage" (with a look towards those ladies).

"Ride?" repeated Dorothy. A flush rose in her cheeks. "No," she answered, in an altered voice – "no!"

She said nothing more, and she did not speak again; she sat looking at the floor. Mrs. North filled the pause with her placid sentences. But Dorothy's manner was so changed and constrained that the young Englishman soon went away. The girl had taken something into her head. But it would not last long; nothing ever did last long with Dorothy.

This belief of his was soon jostled by the fact that Dorothy would not see him. Mrs. North covered the refusal as well as she could by saying that her daughter was not well; that she was not seeing any visitors at present. But Florence was empty; there were no visitors to come; it simply meant, therefore, that she was not seeing Owen Charrington. He lingered on through the month, coming every day to Belmonte. Mrs. North received him graciously. But he was obliged to content himself with a close investigation of their plans for the summer. At last, on the 2d of July, unable any longer to endure the burning, glaring Lung' Arno and the furnace-like atmosphere of the Hôtel d'Italie, he took his departure. He went to Baden-Baden, writing home to his family that he should probably spend the summer in the Black Forest country with friends.

The morning after Charrington's departure, illness (real illness this time) seized Dorothy. For a week she remained motionless on a couch, her face white, her eyes closed.

"We must take her to Switzerland; we must go straight up to the snow," said Charlotte Tracy. "When she sees the glacier water she will revive at once. The gray glacier water, you know; one begins to meet it at Chiomonte; it comes rushing over the rocks, gray and cool, with sometimes a little foam; but gray, always gray – a sort of leady gray."

She said gray so many times that Mrs. North cried out at last, "Oh, do call it green!"

Speedy preparations were made for departure; the trunks were packed and sent down to the railway station. Dorothy remained passive, making no objection to their plans, but showing no interest in them. Caroline, her maid, dressed her for the journey. But when the little black bonnet with its long black veil had been put on, and the black gloves, and the young mistress of the house rose to walk to the carriage, after a few steps her figure swayed, and she sank to the floor; she had fainted. She remained unconscious for so long a time that it was evident there could be no travelling that day; they must wait until she was stronger. They waited, therefore, from one day to the next, each morning expecting to start, and each morning postponing departure. The 15th of July found them still at Belmonte. The thick stone walls of the majestic old house kept out the burning sunshine, and Dorothy appeared to like the warm air that came in through the shaded windows; she lay breathing it quietly, with her eyes closed. The American physician of Florence had gone to New York for six months. An English doctor came up daily. But there was nothing to combat. There was no fever, no malady save this sudden physical weakness. Everything possible was done for this, but with small results. At last Dr. Hotham advised them to attempt the journey in any case. A nurse was engaged; Dorothy was to be carried on a couch to the station, where a railway carriage, provided with an invalid's bed, was waiting. But before they had traversed a quarter of the length of the Via dei Serragli, the clatter of the carriage wheels and the other noises of the street threw the girl into a delirium, and they returned hastily to Bellosguardo. The delirium passed away and they made another attempt. This time they were to cross Florence in the middle of the night, and a special train was to take them northward. But the paroxysm came on again, and with greater violence. Before they reached the bottom of the Bellosguardo hill Dorothy threw up her arms like a wild creature; the nurse could scarcely hold her. This time high fever followed; the girl, now in bed, lay with scarlet cheeks and glassy eyes, knowing nobody. Dr. Hotham conquered the fever. Then she was as she had been before, save that the weakness was increased.

With the exception of Dr. Hotham, there was now no one in Florence whom they knew. Nora Sebright remained at St. Martin's Orphan House out in the country; but she knew nothing of events in town. One day Dr. Hotham, having been called to the orphan house to see a child, spoke to Nora of the puzzling illness of Mrs. Mackenzie; he knew that the Sebrights were among the acquaintances of these American ladies. Nora hurried to town, and, although it was evening, drove up to Belmonte without delay. There were now two nurses at the villa. But Nora was the best nurse; and, after seeing Dorothy for a moment, she begged the mother and aunt to allow her to remain and assist.

"You are extremely kind, Miss Sebright. But I do not think you ought to give yourself so much trouble," said Mrs. North. "Dorothy will soon be stronger; the fever, as you see, has entirely disappeared, and in a few days we shall go to Switzerland."

But Nora followed Mrs. Tracy into the next room. "Dear Mrs. Tracy, do let me stay. I am such a good nurse – you can't think. And I am so fond of Dorothy. And I really think she ought to be amused, if possible. Not that I am very amusing; but at least it makes one more."

There was no lamp in this room, but, all the same, Charlotte Tracy seemed to read an expression in the face she could not see. "What has Dr. Hotham said to you?" she asked.

"Indeed, nothing; he never talks. It is only that Dorothy has always been so well; she was well all winter, you know. Even now (for the fever was only the effort of the journey) there seems to be nothing one can take hold of. And so the question came up, as it always does in such a case, could she have anything weighing upon her mind – weighing too much, I mean? But I am sure," continued Nora, her voice calm as usual (but her face, in the darkness, quivering for an instant), "that we need apprehend no danger of that sort; Dorothy's mind is perfectly healthy. And she has been from the very first so brave, you know – so wonderfully brave."

Charlotte Tracy, a prey to conflicting feelings, bent and kissed Nora without a word. Grief for Alan Mackenzie had indeed been more deeply felt at the dreary orphan house down in the dusty valley than in his own home on this beautiful hill. Nora stayed.

August burned itself out. At Belmonte the heavy outer portals were kept closed; within, all the doors stood open in order to create, if possible, a current of air through the darkened rooms. Once in two hours, night and day, Nora came to Dorothy's bedside and offered some delicate nourishment; Dorothy took it unobjectingly. She seldom spoke, but she appeared to like Nora's presence and her gentle ministrations.

Mrs. Tracy had forced herself to speak to Laura about the doctor's question. Some force was necessary, for she was always exasperated by Laura's replies. "I am beginning to be a little frightened about Dorothy, Laura; she doesn't gain. It is no time to mince matters; such things have happened before, and will happen again as long as the world lasts, and it seems that even Dr. Hotham has asked whether there could be anything weighing upon her mind. Now what I want to know is, do you think she is brooding about something?"

"Brooding?"

"Yes. I mean, do you think she is interested in somebody? – Owen Charrington, if I must name him. You used to think that she liked him? And that she cannot bear the separation? Yet thinks it too soon? And that that was the reason she refused to see him again? And now it is weighing upon her?"

"Mercy, what theories! You have always saddled Dorothy with deeper feelings than she has ever possessed. Do leave the poor child alone; don't make her out so unusual and unpleasant; she is like any other girl of nineteen. She is interested in Owen – yes; but not in that exaggerated way; she isn't pining herself ill about him. And let me tell you, too, that if he were to her at this moment all you are imagining him to be, she wouldn't in the least be deterred by considerations of its being 'too soon,' as you call it; she would not even remember that it was soon."

Mrs. Tracy's eyes filled.

"Well, what now? Do you wish her to be breaking her heart for Alan? I thought you came in to suggest sending post-haste for Owen Charrington! Do you know really what you want yourself? Dorothy will grow stronger in time. A hot summer in Italy has pulled her down, but with the first cool weather she will revive, and then we can carry out our plans."

Towards the middle of September the rains came, the great heat ended. With the return of the fresh breeze Dorothy left her bed, and lay on the broad divan among its large, cool cushions; she even walked about the room a little, once or twice a day. The first time she walked they saw how thin she was; the black dressing-gown hung about her like a pall.

"Take it off," said Mrs. Tracy, when she had beckoned Caroline into the next room. "Never let her wear it again."

"But I have fear that madame is not enough strong yet to wear a costume," suggested the maid, respectfully.

Mrs. Tracy unlocked a wardrobe and took out a pile of folded draperies. They were white morning dresses, long and loose, covered with beautiful laces and knots of ribbon; they had formed part of Dorothy's trousseau. "Let her wear these," she said, briefly.

Dorothy made no objection to the change. Occasionally she looked at her new attire, and smoothed out the ribbons and lace. Throughout her illness she had scarcely spoken. They had supposed that this silence came from her weakness – the weakness which had made it an effort sometimes for her to lift her hand. But now that she was up again, and walking about the room, the muteness continued. She answered their questions, but it seemed necessary for her to recall her thoughts from some distant place in order to answer. She lived in a reverie, and her eyes had a far-off expression. But these were slight things. When ten days had slowly passed without any relapse, Charlotte Tracy, who had counted the hours, exclaimed, with joy, "Now we can go!" Dr. Hotham was to accompany them as far as Vevey. Nothing was to be said to Dorothy, in order that she should not have even a feather's weight of excitement; but the preparations were swiftly made. On the afternoon before the day appointed for the start, Dorothy suddenly left her easy-chair, crossed the room, opened a door, and looked down a corridor. At the end of the corridor she saw Caroline kneeling before open trunks.

"What are you doing, Caroline? Those are my trunks, aren't they? You may stop; I shall not leave Belmonte."

Nora, who had followed, led her back. "Your mother and aunt are so very anxious to go north, dear," she explained. "Come and lie down; you must not tire yourself before the journey."

But Dorothy resisted. "Please call them, Nora; call them both; I must tell them. I know mamma; she will have me carried. But that is because she does not understand. When I tell her, it will be different. Please call them both."

When they came in – Mrs. Tracy alarmed, Mrs. North smiling as if prepared to be, outwardly, very indulgent – Dorothy was still standing in the centre of the room, the laces of her white dress fluttering in the soft breeze.

"Mamma," she said, "I must tell you. Aunt Charlotte, you have always been kind to me. I cannot go away; do not ask me."

"Sit down, Dorothy. Nora, make her sit down. You will not be asked to take a step, my daughter; everything is arranged; don't trouble yourself even to think."

"You do not understand, mamma. But I myself have not understood until lately. I cannot leave Belmonte."

"But Dr. Hotham thinks you can," interposed Mrs. Tracy, soothingly; "he knows how much strength you have. We are all going with you, and the journey will be very easy. You used to like Vevey."

"Let me stay here; I wish to stay here."

"But we have never intended to spend our lives at Bellosguardo," answered Mrs. North, drawing her towards the divan and making her sit down.

"Let me stay a little while longer, mamma."

"You mean that you will be willing to go later? But, we think that now is the time. You have nothing to do save to rest here quietly, and then go to sleep; you will open your eyes in Vevey."

Dorothy, seated, her hands extended on her knees, looked up at her mother. "Mamma, you don't know. There's an ache that will not leave me. I haven't told you about it. But I'm so unhappy!"

Mrs. Tracy, hurrying forward, put her arm round the girl protectingly. Mrs. North, her face slightly flushed, whispered to Nora:

"She is wandering. Please go and send some one immediately for the doctor. Write a note for the man to take with him."

In this way she got rid of Nora.

Dorothy, alone with her mother and aunt, went on talking: "I didn't know what it meant myself for ever so long. But now I do, and it's all simple. I shall just stay quietly here. This is the best place. And you mustn't mind, for it makes me very happy."

"My darling, have you written? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Tracy.

"What do I mean?" Dorothy repeated. She smiled; into her white face came a flush of color. "I mean that I shall see him very soon now. It won't be long to wait."

"She has sent for him," thought the aunt. "I was right; it is Owen."

"That is why I wish to stay here," Dorothy went on. "Everything here is associated with Alan; he liked Belmonte so much."

"Alan?" breathed the aunt, amazed, but instantly concealing her amazement. Mrs. North quickly measured some drops from a phial containing a sedative.

Dorothy let her head sink back against the cushions. "In the beginning I didn't in the least know that I was going to feel it so. But that ache came, and it wouldn't stop. I tried all sorts of things – don't you remember? I tried studying. I tried music lessons. He used to urge me to sing. He liked long walks, and I never would go; so then I took long walks. You haven't forgotten them, have you? But the ache went on, and I could not stand it. So I asked you to go to Paris. Paris has always been so funny and amusing. But it wasn't funny any more. When we came back here I thought that perhaps some one coming up every day and staying a long time would make me forget. But having Waddy was worse than being alone, and at last I hated him. Owen Charrington, too! Owen used to make me laugh; I thought he would make me laugh again. But he didn't at all. And when he asked me that last day to ride it was like a knife; for Alan always went with me, and would never say anything to spoil my pleasure. Yet he did not care about it really, though I insisted upon going day after day. That is the way it was about everything. But I'm paying for it now; I miss him so – I miss him so! Alan! Alan! – " And putting her thin hands over her face, Dorothy burst into miserable heart-broken sobs.

Nora came running in; Mrs. North handed her the medicine glass.

"Hysterics," she said. "Give her those drops as soon as you can."

"I look to you, doctor, to get us out of this new difficulty," said this lady the next day to Dr. Hotham. "She has taken this fixed idea that she does not wish to leave Belmonte. But the fixed idea of a girl of nineteen ought not to be a trouble to you. Can't you suggest something? Has science no resources for such a case?"

Dr. Hotham's resource was to send to Rome for a colleague. The most distinguished English physician in Italy was called to Florence, and there was a consultation at Bellosguardo. When it was over Mrs. North came in to see the great man.

His sentences were agreeable; they were also encouraging. After a time he spoke of the varying forms of nervous prostration; then he asked whether this very interesting young lady could have, by any possibility, something weighing upon her mind?

"No, nothing," replied the mother.

"Ah! In that case time, I trust, is all that is necessary for a complete recovery."

"My own idea would be to take her north in spite of her disinclination to go," Mrs. North went on. "A disinclination ought not to be important. The journey would soon be over. She could be kept under the influence of sedatives. But Dr. Hotham will not give his consent."

"I agree with him, madam. Do not force her; the effect upon the nervous system might be bad. Let her do whatever she fancies. Amuse her. What a pity there is no Corney Grain in Italy!"

"Everything in the way of amusement has been tried. That is why I wish to take her away."

"Ah! I understood you to say, I think, that there is no hidden cause, no wish, no mental – ah – err – strain?"

"Nothing of any consequence. She is hysterical sometimes; but that is owing to her physical weakness," Mrs. North answered. And she said what she believed.

A month later Dorothy, lying on a couch in her room, put out her hand to Nora. "I must give you some of my money, Nora, for your poor people – your orphans and the school and the hospital. I will give it to you to-morrow."

"You can help Nora to distribute it," said Mrs. Tracy.

"Dear Aunt Charlotte, how you hate to hear me speak of it! But I talk to Nora, you know, just as I please in the night."

"No; talk to me, too. Say whatever you like," answered Mrs. Tracy, quickly.

"It is so warm this evening that I can have all the windows open," Dorothy went on. "Take the lamp out, Nora, please, and let in the moonlight; I like to see it shining across the floor." She lay in silence for some minutes looking at the radiance. They had cut off her hair, thinking that its length and thickness might be taking something from her small store of strength. Her face, with the boyish locks, looked very childlike. "Do you remember that song, Aunt Charlotte,'Through the long days'? The moonlight makes me think of it. First, Felicia Philipps sang it one moonlight evening over at Villa Dorio. Then, after we were married, some one sang it here in the garden, and Alan said, when it was over – Oh, if I could only tell him once, just once, that I did love him! He never believed it – he never knew – "

"Don't cry, dear. Don't."

"No; I don't cry very often now," Dorothy answered, her breast rising in one or two long sobs. "Last spring Waddy dared to sing that song again – Alan's song! I could not see him after that.

"Through the long days, the long days and the years – "

"It will tire you to sing, dear."

"No; I like it." And then, in a faint little thread of a voice, barely audible, but very sweet, she sang, lying there in the moonlight, the beautiful song:

It was her last song. Three days later she died. She passed away so quietly that they did not know it was death; they thought she was asleep.

When at last they learned what it was, Mrs. North, standing beside the couch, white and stern, said, with rigid lips, "The doctors did not tell us."

But the doctors did not know.