MAE MADDEN, 
 
 BY MARY MURDOCH MASON, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY POEM, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 
 The wheel of fortune guide you, 
 The boy with the bow beside you 
 Run aye in the way, till the dawn of day 
 And a^luckier lot betide you. 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 JA-NSEN, McCLURG & CO. 
 1876. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 
 
 JANSEN, McCLURG & CO.. 
 A. D. 1875. 
 
 FISH & KTSSELL, PRINTERS. 
 
A DKEAM OF ITALY. 
 
 AN ALLEGOKY INTRODUCING " MAE MADDEN. 11 
 I. 
 
 We two had been parted, God pity us, when 
 
 The stars were unnamed and when heaven was dim ; 
 
 We two had been parted far back on the rim 
 
 And the outermost border of heaven's red bars ; 
 
 We two had been parted ere the meeting of men 
 
 Or God had set compass on spaces as yet. 
 
 We two had been parted ere God had set 
 
 His ringer to spinning the spaces with stars, 
 
 And now, at the last in the gold and set 
 
 Of the sun of Venice, we two had met. 
 
 II. 
 
 Where the lion of Venice, with brows afrown, 
 
 With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth in air, 
 
 Looks out in his watch o'er the watery town, 
 
 With a paw half lifted, with his claws half bare, 
 
 By the blue Adriatic, in the edge of the sea, 
 
 I saw her. I knew her, but she knew not me. 
 
 I had found her at last ! Why, I had sailed 
 
 The antipodes through, had sought, had hailed 
 
 All flags, had climbed where the storm clouds curled, 
 
 And called from the awful arched dome of the world. 
 
4 A DREAM OF ITALY. 
 
 III. 
 
 I saw her one moment, then fell back abashed 
 
 And filled full to the throat. . . . Then I turned me 
 
 once more 
 
 So glad to the sea, while the level sun flashed 
 On the far, snowy Alps. . . . Her breast ! Why, 
 
 her breast 
 
 Was white as twin pillows that allure you to rest; 
 Her sloping limbs moved like to melodies, told 
 As she rose from the sea, and she threw back the gold 
 Of her glory of hair, and set face to the shore. . . . 
 I knew her ! I knew her, though we had not met 
 Since the far stars sang to the sun's first set 
 
 IV. 
 
 How long I had sought her ! I had hungered, nor ate 
 
 Of any sweet fruits. I had tasted not "one 
 
 Of all the fair glories grown under the sun. 
 
 I had sought only her. Yea, I knew that she 
 
 Had come upon earth and stood waiting for me 
 
 Somewhere by my way. But the pathways of fate 
 
 They had led otherwhere. The round world round, 
 
 The far North seas and the near profound 
 
 Had failed rne for aye. Now I stood by that sea 
 
 While a ship drove by, and all dreamily. 
 
 V. 
 
 I had turned from the lion a time, and when 
 
 I looked tow'rd the tide and out on the lea 
 
 Of the town where the warm sea tumbled and teemed 
 
 With beauty, I saw her. I knew her then, 
 
 The tallest, the fairest fair daughter of men. 
 
A DREAM OF ITALY. 5 
 
 O, Venice stood full in her glory. She gleamed 
 In the splendor of sunset and sensuous sea ; 
 Yet I saw but my bride, my affinity, 
 While the doves hurried home to the dome of Saint Mark 
 And the brass horses plunged their high manes in the 
 dark. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Was it well with my love ? Was she true ? Was she 
 
 brave 
 
 With virtue's own valor ? Was she waiting for me ? 
 O, how fared my love ! Had she home ? Had she bread ? 
 Had she known but the touch of the warm-tempered 
 
 wave? 
 
 Was she born upon earth with a crown on her head ; 
 Or born like myself, but a dreamer, instead? 
 So long it had been ! So long ! Why the sea, 
 That wrinkled and surly old time-tempered slave, 
 Had been born, had his revels, grown wrinkled and hoar 
 Since I last saw my love on that uttermost shore. 
 
 VII. 
 
 O, how fared my love? Once I lifted my face 
 And I shook back my hair and looked out on the sea ; 
 I pressed my hot palms as I stood in my place 
 And cried, " O, I come like a king to your side 
 Though all hell intervene." . . . " Hist! she may be 
 
 a bride ! 
 
 A mother at peace, with sweet babes on her knee ! 
 A babe at her breast and a spouse at her side ! . . . 
 Have I wandered too long, and has destiny 
 Set mortal between us?" I buried my face 
 In my hands, and I moaned as I stood in my place. 
 
6 A DREAM OF ITALY. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Twas her year to be young. She was tall, she was fair 
 Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there ? 
 'Twas her year to be young. She was fair, she was tall 
 And I knew she was true as I lifted my face 
 And saw her press down her rich robe to its place 
 With a hand white and small as a babe's with a doll. 
 And her feet why, her feet, in the white shining sand, 
 Were so small they might nest in my one brawny hand. 
 Then she pushed back her hair with a round hand 
 
 that shone 
 And flashed in the light with a white starry stone. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Then, my love she was rich. My love she was fair. 
 Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there ? 
 She was gorgeous with wealth. " Thank God, she has 
 
 bread," 
 
 I said to myself. Then I humbled my head 
 In gratitude. Then I questioned me where 
 Was her palace ? her parents ? What name did she bear ? 
 What mortal on earth came nearest her heart ? 
 Who touched the small hand till it thrilled to a smart ? 
 'Twas her day to be young. She was proud, she was fair. 
 Was she pure as the snow on the Alps over there ? 
 
 X. 
 
 Now she turned, reached a hand ; then a tall gondolier 
 That had leaned on his oar, like a long lifted spear, 
 Shot sudden and swift and all silently 
 And drew to her side as she turned from the tide. . . 
 It was odd, such a thing, and I counted it queer 
 
A DREAM OF ITALY. 7 
 
 That a princess like this, whether virgin or bride, 
 Should abide thus apart, and should bathe in that sea ; 
 And I shook back my hair, and so unsatisfied. 
 Then I fluttered the doves that were perched close about, 
 As I strode up and down in dismay and in doubt. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Then she stood in the boat on the borders of night 
 
 As a goddess might stand oh that far wonder land 
 
 Of eternal sweet life, which men have named Death. 
 
 I turned to the sea and I caught at my breath, 
 
 As she drew from the boat through her white baby hand 
 
 Her vestment of purple imperial, and white. 
 
 Then the gondola shot ! swift, sharp from the shore. 
 
 There was never the sound of a song or of oar 
 
 But the doves hurried home in white clouds to Saint 
 
 Mark, 
 And the lion loomed high o'er the sea in the dark. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Then I cried, "Quick! Follow her. Follow her. 
 
 Fast! 
 
 Come ! Thrice double fare if you follow her true 
 To her own palace door." There was plashing of oar 
 And rattle of rowlock. . . . I sat leaning low 
 Looking far in the dark, looking out as we sped 
 With my soul all alert, bending down, leaning low. 
 But only the oaths of the men as we passed 
 When we jostled them sharp as we sudden shot thro' 
 The watery town. Then a deep, distant roar 
 The rattle of rowlock, the rush of the oar. 
 
8 A DREAM OF ITALY. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Then an oath. Then a prayer ! Then a gust that made 
 
 rents 
 
 Through the yellow sailed fishers. Then suddenly 
 Came sharp forked fire ! Then far thunder fell 
 Like the great first gun ! Ah, then there was route 
 Of ships like the breaking of regiments 
 And shouts as if hurled from an upper hell. 
 Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us about, 
 Then shot us ahead through the hills of the sea 
 As if a great arrow shot shoreward in wars 
 Then heaven split open till we saw the blown stars. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 On! On! Through the foam, through the storm, 
 
 through the town. 
 
 She was gone. She was lost in the wilderness 
 Of palaces lifting their marbles of snow. 
 I stood in my gondola. Up and all down 
 I pushed through the surge of the salt-flood street 
 Above me, below. . . Twas only the beat 
 Of the sea's sad heart. . . Then I heard below 
 The water-rat building, but nothing but that; 
 Not even the sea bird screaming distress, 
 As she lost her way in that wilderness. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I listened all night. I caught at each sound ; 
 
 I clutched and I caught as a man that drown'd. . . . 
 
 Only the sullen low growl of the sea 
 
 Far out the flood street at the edge of the ships. 
 
 Only the billow slow licking his lips, 
 
A DREAM OF ITALY. 9 
 
 Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me ; 
 Growling and showing white teeth all the night, 
 Reaching his neck and as ready to bite 
 Only the waves with their salt flood tears 
 Fawning white stones of a thousand years. 
 
 XYI. 
 
 Only the birds in the wilderness 
 
 Of column and dome and of glittering spire 
 
 Tnat thrust to heaven and held the fire 
 
 Of the thunder still : The bird's distress 
 
 As he struck his wings in that wilderness, 
 
 On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. 
 
 The night below and the night above ; 
 
 The water-rat building, the startled white dove, 
 
 The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird's call 
 
 The water-rat building, but that was all. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Lo ! pushing the darkness from pillar to post, 
 The morning came silent and gray like a ghost 
 Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow 
 And listened. Not even the bird in distress 
 Screaming above through the wilderness; 
 Not even the stealthy old water-rat now. 
 Only the bell in the fisherman's tower 
 Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour 
 To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara 
 For tawny fishers a-sea and pray. 
 
10 A DREAM OF ITALY. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 My dream it is ended, the curtain withdrawn. 
 The night that lay hard on the breast of earth, 
 Deep and heavy as a horrid nightmare, 
 
 Moves by, and I look to the rosy dawn 
 
 I shall leave you. here, with a leader fair ; 
 
 One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth. 
 
 She shall lead you on through tnat Italy 
 
 That the gods have loved ; and may it be 
 
 A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand, 
 
 You wander the warm and the careless love-land. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 By the windy waters of the Michigan 
 
 She invokes the gods. . . . Be it bright or dim, 
 
 Who does his endeavor as best he can 
 
 Does bravely, indeed. The rest is with Him. 
 
 Let a new star dance in the Occident 
 
 Till it shakes through the gossamer floors of God 
 
 And shines o'er Chicago. . . The Orient 
 
 Is hoar with glories. Let Illini sod 
 
 Bear glory as well as the gleaming grain, 
 
 And engines smoking along her plain. 
 
 JOAQUIN MILLER. 
 CHICAGO, Nov., 1875. . 
 
MAE MADDEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SCENE. Deck of an ocean steamer. 
 
 Characters. Mrs. Jerrold, matron and chaperon in 
 general. 
 
 Edith Jerrold, her daughter. 
 
 Albert Madden, a young man on study intent. 
 
 Eric, his brother, on pleasure bent. 
 
 Norman Mann, cousin of the Jerrolds, old class- 
 mate of the Maddens. 
 
 Mae Madden, sister of the brothers and leading lady. 
 
 T'S something like dying, I do declare," 
 said Mae, and as she spoke a suspi- 
 cious-looking drop slid softly across 
 her cheek, down over the deck-railing, 
 to join its original briny fellows in the deep 
 below. 
 
 " What is like dying? " asked Eric. 
 " Why, leaving the only world you know. 
 There, you see, papa and mamma are fast fad- 
 ing away, and here we are traveling off at 
 the rate of ever so many miles an hour." 
 u Knots, Mae; do be nautical at sea." 
 UNP/EflSiTY Of CALIFORNIA UBRARI 
 
12 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 u Away from everything and everybody we 
 know. I do really think it is like dying, don't 
 you, Mr. Mann?" Mae turned abruptly and 
 faced the young man by her side. 
 
 u People aren't apt to die in batches or by the 
 half-dozen," he replied, coolly. " If you were all 
 by yourself, it would be more like it, I suppose, 
 but you are taking quite a slice of your own 
 world along with you, and really " 
 
 u And really pity is the very last article I 
 have any use for. You are right. I was only 
 sorry for the moment. ' Eastward Ho ' is a 
 very happy cry. How differently we shall all 
 take Europe," she continued, in a moment. 
 u There is Albert, I honestly believe he will 
 live in his Baedeker just because he can see 
 no further than the covers of a book. You 
 need not laugh, for it is a fact that people 
 confined for years to a room can't see beyond 
 its limits when they are taken out into broader 
 space, and I don't see why it shouldn't be the 
 same with a man who lives in his books as Al- 
 bert does." 
 
 " He sees the world in his books," said Mr. 
 Mann, with a little spirit. 
 
 " He gets a microscopic view of it, yes," re- 
 plied Mae, grandiloquently, " and Edith " 
 
MAE MADDEN. 13 
 
 u Always sees just what he does," suggested 
 Eric maliciously. 
 
 " Now, boys," said Miss Mae, assuming sud- 
 denly a mighty patronage, u I will not have 
 you hit at Albert and Edith in this way. It 
 will be very annoying to them. They have a 
 right to act just as absurdly as they choose. 
 We none of us know how people who are fall- 
 ing in love would act." 
 
 No, the boys agreed this was quite true. 
 
 u And I really do suppose they are falling in 
 love, don't you? " queried Mae. 
 
 Yes, they did both believe it. 
 
 Just here, up came the two subjects of con- 
 versation, looking, it must be confessed, as 
 much like one subject as any man and wife. 
 
 u What are you talking of ?" asked Edith, 
 u Madame Tussaud or a French salad ? No 
 matter how trivial the topic, I am sure it has a 
 foreign flavor." 
 
 u There you are mistaken," replied the frank 
 Eric, " we were discussing you two people, in 
 the most homelike kind of a way." 
 
 At this Edith blushed, Albert frowned, Mae 
 scowled at Eric, who opened his eyes amazedly, 
 Norman Mann looked over the deck railing and 
 laughed, the wind blew, the sailors heave-ho-ed 
 
14 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 near by, and there was a grand tableau vivant 
 for a few seconds. 
 
 u 0, come," cried Mae, u suppose we stop look- 
 ing like a set of illustrations for a phrenological 
 journal, expressive of the various emotions. I 
 was only speculating on the different sights we 
 should see in the same places. Confess, now, Al- 
 bert. Won't your eyes be forever hunting out 
 old musty, dusty volumes? Will not books be 
 your first pleasures in the sight-seeing line ? " 
 
 " 0, no, pictures," cried Edith. 
 
 u That is as you say," Mae demurely agreed. 
 " Pictures and books for you two at any rate." 
 
 u And churches." 
 
 " For your mother, yes, and beer-gardens for 
 Eric, and amphitheatres and battle fields for Mr. 
 Mann." 
 
 u And for yourself ? " 
 
 " The blue, blue bay of Naples, a grove of 
 oranges, moonlight and a boat if it please you." 
 
 " By the way," suggested Albert, " about our 
 plans; we really should begin to agitate the 
 matter at once." 
 
 u Yes, to do our fighting on shipboard. Let us 
 agree to hoist the white flag the day we sight 
 land, else we shall settle down into a regular War 
 of the Roses and never decide," laughed Norman. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 15 
 
 " As there are six minds," continued Albert, 
 " there will have to be some giving up." 
 
 " Why do you look at me?" enquired Mae. 
 " I am the very most unselfish person in the 
 world. I'll settle down anywhere for the win- 
 ter, provided only that it is not in Rome." 
 
 " But that is the very place," cried Edith, and 
 Albert, and Mrs. Jerrold from her camp-chair. 
 
 " 0, how dreadful! The only way to prevent 
 it will be for us to stand firm, boys, and make 
 it a tie." 
 
 u But Norman is especially eager to go to 
 Rome," said Edith, "and that makes us four 
 strong at once in favor of that city." 
 
 " But is not Rome a fearful mixture of dead 
 Caesar's bones and dirty beggars? And mustn't 
 one carry hundreds of dates at one's finger-tips 
 to appreciate this, and that, and the other? Is 
 it not all tremendously and overwhelmingly 
 historical, and don't you have to keep exerting 
 your mind and thinking and remembering? I 
 would rather go down to Southern Italy and 
 look at lazzaroni lie on stone walls, in red 
 cloaks, as they do in pictures,"" and not be 
 obliged to topple off the common Italian to 
 pile the gray stone with old memories of some 
 great dead man. Everything is ghostly in 
 
16 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Rome. Now, there must be some excitement 
 in Southern Italy. There's Vesuvius, and she 
 isn't dead like Nero but a living demon, 
 that may erupt any night, and give you a little 
 red grave by the sea for your share." 
 
 u She's not nearly through yet," laughed 
 Edith, as Mae paused for breath. 
 
 u I'm only afraid," said Mae, u that after I 
 had been down there a week, I should forget 
 English, buy a contadina costume, marry a 
 child of the sun, and run away from this big 
 world with its puzzles and lessons, and rights 
 and wrongs. Imagine me in my doorway as 
 you passed in your travelling carriage, hot and 
 tired on your way say to Sorrento. I would 
 dress my beautiful Italian all up in scarlet 
 flowers and wreathe his big hat and kiss his 
 brown eyes and take his brown hand, and then 
 we would run along by the bay and laugh at 
 you stiff, grand world's folks as we skipped past 
 you." 
 
 u We shall know where to look for you, if 
 ever you do disappear," said Norman Mann. 
 
 " But, my dear Mae," added Albert, u though 
 this is amusing, it is utterly useless." 
 
 u Amusing things always are," said Mae. 
 
 " The question is, shall we or shall we not go 
 to Rome for the winter?" 
 
MAE MADDEN. 17 
 
 " Certainly, by all means, and if I don't like 
 it, I'll run away to Sorrento,'' and Mae shook 
 her sunny head and twinkled her eyes in a 
 fascinating sort of way, that made Eric feel a 
 proud brotherly pleasure in this saucy young 
 woman, and that gave Norman Mann a sort of 
 feeling he had had a good deal of late, a feeling 
 hard to define, though we have all known it, a 
 delicious concoction of pleasure and pain. His 
 eyes were fixed on Mae, now. " What is it? " 
 she asked. u You will like Rome, I am sure." 
 " No, I never like what I think I shall not." 
 
 u It might save some trouble, then, if I ask 
 you now if you expect to like me," said he, in a 
 lower tone. " Why certainly, I do like you 
 very much," she replied, honestly. " What a 
 stupid question," he thinks, vexedly. " Why 
 did I tell him I liked him ? " she thinks, blush- 
 ingly. So the waves of anxiety and doubt be- 
 gin to swell in these two hearts as the outside 
 waves beat with a truer sea-motion momently 
 against the steamer's side. 
 
 Between days of sea-sickness come delightful 
 intervals of calm sea and fresh* breezes, when 
 the party fly to the hurricane deck to get the 
 very quintessence of life on the ocean wave. 
 One morning Mrs. Jerrold and Edith were sit- 
 
18 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ting there alone, with rugs and all sorts of head 
 devices in soft wools and flannels, and books 
 and a basket of fruit. The matron of the party 
 was a tall, fine-looking woman, a good type of 
 genuine New England stock softened by city 
 breeding. New Engianders are so many propo- 
 sitions from Euclid, full of ri^ht angles and 
 straight lines, but easy living and the dressma- 
 ker's art combine to turn the corners gently. 
 Edith was like her mother, but softened by a 
 touch of warm Dutch blood. She was tall, almost 
 stately, with a good deal of American style, 
 which at that time happened to be straight and 
 slender. She was naturally reserved, but four 
 years of boarding-school life had enriched her 
 store of adjectives and her amount of endearing 
 gush-power, and she had at least six girl friends 
 to whom she sent weekly epistles of some half- 
 dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of 
 
 them, with " My dearest " and ending 
 
 " Your devoted Edith." 
 
 As Edith and her mother quietly read, and 
 ate grapes, and lolled in a delightfully feminine 
 way, voices were heard, Mae's and Norman's. 
 They were in the middle of a conversation. 
 " Yes," Mae was saying, " you do away with 
 individuality altogether nowadays, with your 
 
.WAE MADDEN. 19 
 
 dreadful classifications. It is all the same from 
 daffodils up to women." 
 
 "How do we classify women, pray? " 
 
 " In the mind of man," began Mae, as if she 
 were reading, u there are three classes of wom- 
 en; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the 
 woman's righters. The first are pretty and silly; 
 the second, plain and useful; the third, mannish 
 and odious. The first wear long trailing dresses 
 and smile at you while waltzing, the second 
 wear aprons and give you apple-dumplings, 
 and the third want your manly prerogatives, 
 your dress-coat, your money, and your vote. 
 Flirt with the giddy butterflies, your first love 
 was one. First loves always are. Marry the 
 busy bee. Your mother was a busy bee. 
 Mothers always are. And keep on the other side 
 of the street from the woman's righter as long 
 as you can. Alas! your daughter will be one." 
 
 u Well, isn't there any classifying on the 
 other side? Aren't there horsemen and sport- 
 ing men and booky men, in the feminine 
 mind?" 
 
 u Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, 
 and nowadays this terrible army of reformers 
 and radicals, of whom my brother Albert here 
 is the best known example." 
 
20 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 "What is it?' 1 asked Albert, looking up 
 abstractedly from his book, for he and Eric had 
 sauntered up the stairs too, by this time. 
 
 " They are the creatures," continued Mae, 
 " who scorn joys and idle pleasures. They 
 deal with the good of the many and the prob- 
 lems of the universe, and step solemnly along to 
 that dirge known as the March of Progress. 
 And what do they get for it all ? Something 
 like this. Put down your book, I'm going to 
 prophesy," and Mae backed resolutely up 
 against the railing and held her floating scarfs 
 and veils in a bunch at her throat, while she 
 prophesied in this way: 
 
 " Behold me, direct lineal descendant of 
 Albert Madden, speaking to my children in the 
 year 1995: ; What, children, want amusement? 
 Want to see the magic lantern to note the 
 effects of light? Alas! how frivolous. Listen, 
 children, to the achievements of your great 
 ancestor, as reported by the Encyclopedia. "A. 
 Madden promoter of civilization and progress, 
 chiefly known by his excellent theory entitled 
 The Number of Cells in a Human Brain com- 
 pared to the Working Powers of Man, and that 
 remarkable essay, headed by this formula: Given 
 10,000,000 laboring men, to find the number 
 
MAE MADDEN. 21 
 
 of loaves of bread in the world." Here, chil- 
 dren, take these works. Progressimus, you may 
 have the theory, while Civilizationica reads the 
 essay. Then change about. Ponder them well, 
 and while we walk to the Museum later, tell 
 me their errors. Then I will show you the 
 preserved ears of the first man found in Bosh- 
 land by P. T. Barnum, jr.' Oh, bosh," said 
 Mae suddenly, letting fly her streamers, u what 
 a dry set of locusts you nineteenth century 
 leaders are. You are devouring our green 
 land, and some of us butterflies would like 
 to turn our yellow wings into solid shields 
 against you, if we could. There, I've made 
 a goose of myself again on the old sub- 
 ject. Edith, there's the lunch bell. Take me 
 down before I say another word." Exeunt femi- 
 nines all. 
 
 " Where did the child pick up all that?" 
 queried Albert. 
 
 u ; A11 that ' is in the air just now," answered 
 Norman. u It is a natural reaction of a strong 
 physical nature against the utilitarian views of 
 the day. Miss Mae is a type of 
 
 " 0, nonsense, what prigs you are," interrupt- 
 ed Eric, " Mae is jolly. Do stop your reason- 
 ing about her. If you are bound to be a potato 
 
22 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 yourself to help save the masses from starva- 
 tion, don't grumble because she grew a flower. 
 Come, let us go to lunch too." 
 
 Conversation was not always of this sort. 
 One evening, not long after, there was a moon, 
 and Edith and Albert were missing. Eric was 
 following a blue-eyed girl along the deck, and 
 Mae and Norman wandered off by themselves 
 up to this same hurricane deck again. The 
 moonlight was wonderful. It touched little 
 groups here and there and fell full on the face 
 of a woman in the steerage, who sat with her 
 arms crossed on her knee and her face set east- 
 ward. She was singing, and her voice rose 
 clearly above the puff of the engine and the 
 jabber below. There was a chorus to the song, 
 in which rough men and tired looking women 
 joined. The song was about home, and once 
 in a while the girl unclasped her arms and 
 passed her hands over her eyes. Mae and Nor- 
 man Mann looked at her silently. " I suppose * 
 we don't know when we make pictures," said 
 Mae. a Don't we?" asked Norman pointedly. 
 Mae looked very reprovingly out from her 
 white wraps at him, but he smiled back compos- 
 edly and admiringly, arid drew her hand a trifle 
 closer in his arm. And saucy Mae began to 
 
MAE MADDEN. 23 
 
 feel in that sort of purring mood women come 
 to when they drop the bristling, ready-for-fight 
 air with which they start on an acquaintance. 
 Perhaps, if the steamer had been a sailing-ves- 
 sel, there would have been no story to tell 
 about Mae Madden, for a long line of evenings, 
 and girls singing songs, and hurricane decks 
 by moonlight, are dangerous things. But the 
 vessel was a fast steamer, and was swiftly near- 
 ing land again. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ROME> February, 18 . 
 Y DEAR MAMMA: Yes, it is Rome, 
 mamma, and everybody is impressed. 
 The boys talk of emperors all the 
 time; Edith is wild over Madonnas 
 and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from 
 Paul's house to Paul's walks and Paul's 
 drives and Paul's stand at the prisoner's 
 bar, and reads the Acts through five times a 
 day, in the most religious and Romanistic 
 spirit. No one could make more fuss over a 
 patron saint, I am sure. For my part, I feel as 
 if I were in the most terrible ghost story. 
 The old Romans are all around me. Under- 
 neath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and 
 in the air I half see a constant flashing of 
 swords and scars and blood, and I can't even 
 put my foot on the Roman pavement without 
 wondering which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot 
 No. 2 is walking over. I shouldn't mind tramp- 
 ling old Caligula, but I don't like the thought 
 on general principles. I feel all out of place, 
 so modern and fixed up and flimsy. If I could 
 
MAE MADDEN. 25 
 
 get into old picturesque clothes and out of the 
 English-speaking quarter, I should not be so 
 oppressed and might worship Rome. But I 
 seriously think I shall die if I stay here much 
 longer. There's a spirit-malaria that eats into 
 my life. I feel as if all the volumes of Roman 
 history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has 
 in his study, were laid right on top of my little 
 heart, so that every time it beats, it thumps 
 against them, and I assure you, mamma, its 
 worse than dyspepsia. If I could only get out 
 on a New England hillside, where there were 
 no graves more important than those of 
 grasshoppers and butterflies! What should I do 
 when I got there? Take off my hat, and 
 scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a 
 fresh country, with rich, warm, untainted earth 
 and young life. 
 
 But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I 
 shouldn't be writing it, if I hadn't just come 
 from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think 
 of Albert's insisting upon going there the very 
 first thing ! But so he did, and so we went, 
 and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, 
 and saw everybody's tombs and ashes, and 
 quoted poetry, until I stuck a pin in Albert's 
 arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from 
 
26 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 crying. Then, oh, how shocked they looked. 
 Even Mr. Mann seemed ashamed of me. When 
 we reached the place, we each took a candle 
 and the guide led the way- down into the bowels 
 of the earth. Mamma, they are very un- 
 pleasant. There were two German youths 
 along, and green lizards crawled all over. They 
 winked at me. The way grew so narrow that 
 we had to walk one by one through lines of 
 wall perforated with holes for dead bodies. 
 Once in a while we would come to a small 
 chapel, for miserable variety's sake, and be told 
 to admire some very old, very wretched paint- 
 ing. Jonah and the whale were represented in 
 a double-barreled miracle picture. Not only 
 was the whale about to swallow Jonah, but he 
 was only as large as a good-sized brook trout, 
 while Jonah towered away above him like a 
 Goliath. I found myself wondering if the guide 
 had convulsions, and if he should have one now, 
 and die, how many days would pass before we 
 should eat each other. And would they take 
 me first, because I am youngest and plumpest? 
 Albert would make good soup bones, and Eric's 
 shoulder serve as a delicious fore-quarter. And 
 by the time we came to the top again, I was all 
 ready to cry. And then, mamma, I did an 
 
MAE MADDEN. 27 
 
 awful thing. Mr. Mann exclaimed: u Why, 
 Miss Mae, how frightened you look. You are 
 quite white." And I answered very sharply : 
 u What a disagreeable man you are. I'm not 
 frightened at all." I said it in a dreadful tone, 
 and how his face changed. He looked so 
 strangely. Everybody was still but Albert, 
 and he said, " Why, Mae, you are very rude 
 to Mr. Mann. 11 Even then I didn't apolo- 
 gize. So here we are at sword's points, and all 
 the rest sympathizing with my foe, who is only 
 on th6 defensive. Why am I such a belliger- 
 ent? I can 7 t conceive where I got my nature, 
 unless from that very disagreeable dear old 
 grandpapa of papa^, who fought the whole 
 world all his life. But how egotistic I am, even 
 to my mother. Of course you want to know 
 how we are lodged and clothed and fed. We 
 have taken apartments, as I presume Albert 
 wrote you, on the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, 
 quite near the Costanzi hotel, which is in the 
 heigth of the fashion as a hotel; near too, 
 which is better, to Mr. Story's studio and the 
 old Barberini palace and the Barberini square 
 and fountains. Off behind, is that terrible 
 church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery 
 underneath of bones and skulls and such 
 
28 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 horrors. I like the apartments very much, 
 principally because I have made three staunch 
 friends and one good enemy, in the kitchen. 
 The padrona, she's the woman who keeps the 
 house, and serves us, too, in this case though 
 Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the table 
 and care for our rooms well, the padrona is 
 my first friend. Her cousin, a handsome south- 
 ern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not 
 only my friend, but my instructress. She tells 
 me lovely stories about her home and the 
 peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor 
 with Giovanni, friend number three and eldest 
 son of the padrona, and even Roberto, my 
 enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes 
 his naughty mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that 
 is the cousin's name. I am so glad I studied 
 Italian as hard as I did for my music, for it 
 comes very easily to me now, arid already I slip 
 the pretty words from my halting tongue 
 much more smoothly and quickly than you 
 would imagine I could. Mrs. Jerrold isn't 
 quite satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, 
 only she doesn't believe in letting us girls stay 
 at large hotels. She and Edith are shocked at 
 my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off 
 quietly and say nothing about it. It is strange 
 
MAE'MADDEN. 29 
 
 for me to have to keep anything secret, but I 
 am learning how. 
 
 As for our clothes, 0, mamma, Edith is 
 ravishing in a deep blue-black silk, with a 
 curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd loopings 
 here and there where you don't expect to find 
 them. What can't a Parisian dressmaker do? 
 They have such a wonderful idea of appropri- 
 ateness, it seems to me. Now, at home you 
 know we girls always wear the same sort of 
 
 thing, but Madame H says no, Edith, and 
 
 I should dress very differently; and now Edith's 
 clothes all have a flow, and sweep, and grace 
 about them, and her silks rustle in a stately 
 way as she walks, while my dresses haven't any 
 trimming to speak of, but are cut in a clinging, 
 square sort of way, with jackets, and here and 
 there a buckle, that makes me feel half the time 
 as if I were playing soldier in a lady-like 
 fashion. But what a budget this is. How 
 shocked the people here would be. They take 
 travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker, 
 like the Bible, and here am I crushing down 
 Rome, and raising Paris on top of it. Indeed, 
 I can't help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating. 
 It takes away your moral nature and adds it 
 all into your powers of enjoyment. Well, 
 
30 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tre- 
 mendous letters, won't you ; for I do love you 
 dearly. 
 
 Your loving daughter, 
 
 MAE. 
 
 Mae felt a great deal better when she had 
 finished the letter, and, like a volatile girl HS 
 she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris 
 gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in 
 a very light-hearted manner. 
 
 " Why, you look like a different girl," cried 
 Eric, as she entered the parlor, where he and 
 Mr. Mann were sitting. " Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, 
 and Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you 
 are left to my tender care ; will you ride or 
 
 walk ?" 
 
 u How can you ask? My feet are quite wild. 
 No wonder I am a different girl. Are we not 
 going to the Pincian hill to look at the live 
 world and people? I have just unlocked the 
 stop-gates and let the blood bound in my veins 
 as it wants to." 
 
 " It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should 
 say from your long face to-day." 
 
 " 0, it has only been trying to keep step 
 with the march of the ages, or some such 
 
MAE MADDEN. 31 
 
 stately tread, but it was hard work, and now 
 the dear life of me hops, skips and jumps, like 
 this," and Mae seized her brother and danced 
 across the room, stopping very near Mr. Mann, 
 who stood with his back to them, drumming 
 on the window pane. She looked at him quiz- 
 zically and half raised her eyebrows. 
 
 Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his 
 outspoken way: "You owe him an apology, 
 Mae, for this morning's rudeness." 
 
 Mr. Mann turned quickly. " I am surprised, 
 Eric. Let your sister find out for herself when 
 she is rude." 
 
 u Bless me," cried Eric, " what is the row?" 
 
 Mae looked determined. " Are you going to 
 the Pincian with us?" she asked. 
 
 u No, I am going to stay home." 
 
 u Well, good-bye, then. Come, Eric." The 
 door closed behind them. 
 
 Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched 
 them walk away. Mae, with her eager, restless, 
 fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric, 
 with his boy-man air and his student swing 
 and happy-go-lucky toss of his head. Mr. 
 Mann smiled and then he sighed. u That's a 
 good boy, so square and fair and merry and a 
 queer girl," he added. " Rome isn't the place 
 
MADDEX. 
 
 for her. She must get away, though why I 
 should take care for her. or worry about her, 
 little vixen. I don't see." Still he smiled as 
 one would over a very winning, very wicked 
 child, and shortly after took his hat and went 
 to the Pincio, after all. 
 
 Meantime, the brother and sister had walked 
 gaily along, passed the Spanish Steps, and 
 were on the Pincian hill. Here, Mae was in- 
 deed happy. The fine equipages and dark. 
 rich beauty of the Italians delighted her, and 
 she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched 
 the carriages drive round and round, and criti- 
 cised, and admired, and laughed like two idle 
 children. They bought some flowers, and 
 Mae sat pulling them to pieces, when they 
 caught sight, down the pathway, of two ap- 
 proaching Piedniontese officers. 
 
 " 0," cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and 
 clasped her hands, and sprang to her feet, " 0, 
 Eric, are they gods or men?" 
 
 The Piedniontese officer is godlike. He must 
 be of a certain imposing height to obtain his 
 position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches 
 and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified 
 by southern blood, give him a strange fasci- 
 nation. The cold, manly beauty and strength 
 
MAE MADDEN. 33 
 
 of a northern blonde meet with the heat and 
 lithe grace of the more supple southerner to 
 produce this paragon. There is a combination 
 of half-indolent elegance and sensuous langour, 
 with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that puts him at 
 the very head of masculine beauty. Add to the 
 charms of his physique, the jauntiest, most be- 
 witching of uniforms, the clinking spurs, the 
 shining buttons, the jacket following every line 
 of his figure, and no wonder maidens' hearts 
 seek him out always and young pnlses beat 
 quicker at his approach. 
 
 Mae's admiration was simply rapturous. 
 Utterly regardless of the pretty picture she 
 herself made, of her vivid coloring and spark- 
 ling beauty, she stood among her dropped 
 flowers until the two pairs of eyes were fixed 
 upon her. Then she became suddenly aware of 
 her attitude and with quick feminine cunning 
 endeavored to transfer her admiration to some 
 beautiful horses cantering by, exclaiming in 
 Italian, that the officers might surely under- 
 stand she was thinking only of the fine ani- 
 mals: " 0, what wonderful horses!" 
 
 The foreign pronunciation, Eric's amuse- 
 ment, Mae's confusion, were not lost upon the 
 men. Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes 
 
34 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 and pride gratified. They sauntered leisurely 
 past, only to turn a corner and quicken their 
 steps again toward the bench where Eric and 
 Mae were seated. They found the brother and 
 sister just arising, and followed them slowly. 
 
 An Italian is quick to detect secrets. The 
 two had not proceeded far before one said to 
 the other: "Eh, Luigi, we are not the only in- 
 terested party. 1 ' 
 
 Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd 
 of Italian loungers gazing at the little stranger 
 with their softly-bold black eyes full of admir- 
 ation. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. 
 " Bah, they gaze in that way at all womankind. 
 See, now they are watching the next one," and 
 as he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to 
 stare at a young Italian girl, who pressed closer 
 to the side of her hook-nosed old duenna. 
 
 " It is not those loungers that I noticed," re- 
 plied the other. ci Look there," and he waved 
 his hand lightly toward the left, where, under a 
 large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, 
 stood a young man. 
 
 " Ah," said Luigi, still incredulous, " he sees 
 nothing but Rome; he is fresh from over the 
 seas." 
 
 " No, no, watch his eyes," replied the other. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 35 
 
 They were assuredly fixed, with a keen search- 
 ing glance, on a little form before them, and as 
 Eric and Mae suddenly turned to the left, the 
 stranger, half carelessly, but very quickly, 
 crossed to another path, from which he could 
 watch them, but be, in his turn, unobserved. 
 
 u Jealous, 11 laughed Luigi, shrugging his 
 shoulders again. " Her lover, probably." 
 
 " No," replied Bero, st but he may be some 
 time." Then after a moment's pause, "Good 
 evening," he said' carelessly. u I am going to 
 say my prayers at vespers. I've been a sorry 
 scamp of late." 
 
 Luigi laughed disdainfully and lightly. "You 
 want to get rid of me? Well, be it so. I 
 don't want to lose my heart over a little for- 
 eigner. I have other game. However, Lillia 
 shall not know of it. Addio, Bero." So Luigi 
 went off the other way, and Bero, with a flushed 
 face, followed Mae at a distance, and kept an 
 eye on the stranger, flattering himself that he 
 was quite unnoticed by those sharp, keen eyes. 
 He was mistaken. Norman Mann had seen the 
 officers before they saw him, had watched their 
 footsteps, and had a pretty clear idea of the 
 whole affair. 
 
 Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, 
 
36 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 and with that vague, delightful feeling of some- 
 thing exciting in the air. She knew there was 
 an officer behind her, because she had heard the 
 clicking spurs, but she only guessed that he 
 might be one of the two who had passed the 
 taller, perhaps, which, of course, he was. She 
 had, moreover, in some mysterious way, caught 
 sight of a figure resembling Norman Mann, 
 trying, she thought, to avoid her. Her spirits 
 rose with the half-mystery, and she grew 
 brighter and prettier and more magnetic to the 
 two followers as she tossed her shoulders 
 slightly and now and then half-turned her 
 sunny head. 
 
 As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of 
 any secrets.' He fancied himself and his pretty, 
 nice, little sister all alone by their very selves, 
 and he went so far as to expatiate on the vast- 
 ness of the world, and how in this crowd there 
 was no other life that bordered or touched on 
 theirs. 
 
 To which Mae replied: u You don't know; 
 you may fall in love with one of these very 
 Italian girls, or my future husband may be 
 walking behind me now." When she had said 
 this, she flushed scarlet and was very much 
 ashamed of herself in her heart. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 37 
 
 " We must go home now," Eric replied, 
 quite disdaining such sybilistic remarks. So 
 they left the hill and went down the Steps in 
 the rich afternoon light, and so home- 
 wards. Of course the Italian and Mr. Mann 
 still followed them ; Norman on the other side 
 of the street, the Italian in a slyer, less con- 
 spicuous manner, by taking side streets, or the 
 next parallel pavement, and appearing only 
 at every corner in the distance. He appeared, 
 however, close at hand, as Mae and Eric turned 
 into their lodgings. His eyes met Mae's. She 
 blushed involuntarily as she recognized him, 
 and at once, in that moment, there was an in- 
 visible half-acquaintance established between 
 the two. If they should ever meet again, they 
 would remember each other. 
 
 Mae crept off to the kitchen that evening, to 
 beg for another of Lisetta's stories, and quite 
 forgot her walk, the officer, and Norman Mann 
 while she listened to fche 
 
 STORY OF TALILA. 
 
 Talila was a young girl, destined to be a 
 nun. She was a naughty little girl and would 
 make wry faces at the thought, and wish she 
 could be a man, a soldier or a sailor, instead of 
 
38 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 being a woman and a nun ; and as she grew 
 older she would dance all the time, and didn't 
 say her prayers very much, and was so bad 
 that the priest sent for her to see him. He 
 told her how wicked she was, and that, too, 
 when she was to be the bride of the church ; 
 but she said the church had many, many 
 brides, and she would rather be the bride of 
 Giovanni ; and that she loved red-cheeked ba- 
 bies better than beads, and songs were nicer 
 than prayers. Should she sing him such a 
 pretty, gay one she knew? And the priest 
 could hardly keep from laughing at the bright- 
 eyed, naughty, naughty Talila. But he said : 
 " If Giovanni does not want to marry you, will 
 you then become the bride of the church ? " 
 And Talila laughed aloud and tossed her head. 
 u Giovanni longs to marry me, Father, 1 ' she 
 said, " I know that already." But the Father 
 sent for Giovanni and gave him money if he 
 would say he did not want to marry Talila. 
 At first he would not say so. but the Father 
 showed him a purse all full of silver, which 
 Talila's mother had brought him, for it was 
 she who had vowed Talila should be a nun. 
 Then the Father said : u This is yours if you 
 say as I wish, and if not, you shall be cursed 
 
MAE MADDEN. 39 
 
 forever, arid all your children shall be cursed, 
 because you have married the bride of the 
 church." Then Giovanni crossed himself and 
 took the bag of silver, and the priest sent 
 for Talila, and she heard her Giovanni say 
 he didn't want to marry her she had bet- 
 ter be a nun ; and she threw up her brown 
 arms and screamed aloud, and fell down as 
 if dead. And afterwards she was very ill, 
 and when she grew better she had forgotten 
 everything and was only a little child, and she 
 loves little children, and is ever with them, but 
 she calls them all Giovanni. They play to- 
 gether by the bay through the long day, and 
 at night she takes them to their mothers, and 
 goes alone to her home. But alas ! she never 
 tells her beads, or prays a prayer, and sorry 
 things are said of her that God gave her up 
 because she left Him. But the children all 
 love her, and she loves them. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 jjDITH and Mae had a quarrel one 
 morning. Mae's tongue was sharp, 
 but although she breezed quickly, she 
 calmed again very soon. The latter 
 fact availed her little this time, for Edith 
 maintained a cold displeasure that would not 
 be melted by any bright speeches or frank apolo- 
 gies. " Edith," said little Miss Mae, quite 
 humbly for her, as she put on her hat, and drew 
 on her gloves, " Edith, aren't you going out with 
 me?" " What for?" asked that young person 
 indifferently. 
 
 "Why for fun, and to make up. Haven't 
 you forgiven me yet? " 
 
 Edith did not reply directly. " I am going 
 out with mamma to buy our dominoes for the 
 Carnival, and to see our balcony. Albert has 
 engaged one for us, on the corner of the Corso 
 and Santa Maria e Jesu. I suppose you can go 
 too. There will be an extra seat. We'll come 
 home by the Pincian Hill." 
 
 " Thank you," said Mae, " but I will get Eric 
 and go for a tramp," and she left the room with 
 
MAE MADDEN. 41 
 
 compressed lips and flushed cheeks. In the 
 hall were Albert, Eric and Norman, talking 
 busily. " Where are you going Eric, mayn't I 
 go too, please?" "I'm sorry Mae, but this is 
 an entirely masculine affair five-button gloves 
 and parasols are out of the question." 
 
 " 0, Ric, I am half lonely." Mae laughed a 
 little hysterically. At that moment she caught 
 Mr. Mann's eyes, full of sympathy. " But good- 
 bye," she added, and opened the door, u I'm 
 going." 
 
 "Alone? " asked Norman, involuntarily. 
 
 " Yes, alone," replied Mae. " Have you any 
 objections, boys?" Eric and Albert were 
 talking busily and did not hear her. Norman 
 Mann held open the door for her to pass out, 
 and smiled as she thanked him. She smiled 
 back. She came very nea,r saying, " I'm sorry 
 I was rude the other day, forgive me," and he 
 came very near saying, " May I go with you, 
 Miss Mae? " But they neither of them spoke, 
 and Norman closed the door with a sigh, and 
 Mae walked away with a sigh. It was only a 
 little morning's experience, sharp words, mis- 
 understandings; but the child was young, far 
 from home and her mother, and it seemed hard 
 to her. She was in a very wild mood, a very 
 
42 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 hard mood, and yet all ready to be softened by 
 a kind, sympathetic word, so nearly do extremes 
 of emotion meet. 
 
 " There's no one to care a pin about me," said 
 she to herself, " not a pin. I have a great mind 
 to go and take the veil or drown myself in the 
 Tiber. Then they would be bound to search for 
 me, and convent vows and Tiber mud hold one 
 fast. No, I won't, I'll go and sit in the Pincian 
 gardens and talk Italian with the very first 
 person I meet and forget all about myself. I 
 wish Mr. Mann wouldn't pity me. Dear me, 
 here I am remembering these forlorn people 
 again. I wish I could see mamma and 
 home this morning, the dear old library. Why 
 the house is shut up and mamma's south. I 
 forgot that, and here am I all alone. It is like 
 being dead. There, I have dropped a tear on 
 my tie and spoiled it! Besides, if one is dead, 
 there comes Heaven. Why shouldn't I play 
 dead, and make my own Heaven? " Here Mae 
 seated herself, for she was on the Pincio by this 
 time, and looked off at the view, at that won- 
 derful view of St. Peter's, the Tiber, all the 
 domes and rising ruins and afar the campagna. 
 " I wouldn't make my Heaven here," thought 
 this dreadful Mae, " not if it is beautiful. I'd 
 
MAE MADDEN. 43 
 
 not stay here a single other day. Bah no!" 
 and she shook her irreverent little fist right 
 down at the Eternal City. 
 
 At this moment, a small beggar, who had 
 been pleading unnoticed at her side, was lifted 
 from his feet by a powerful hand, and a shower 
 of soft Italian imprecations fell on Mae's ear. 
 She sprang up quickly, " No, no," she cried in 
 Italian, "how dare you hurt a harmless boy ?" 
 She lifted her face full toward that of the man 
 who had inspired her wrath, and her eyes met 
 those of the Piedmontese officer. She blushed 
 scarlet. 
 
 " Pardon, a thousand pardons," began he. "It 
 was for your sake, Signorina. I saw you shake 
 your hand that he should leave you, and I fan- 
 cied that the little scamp was troubling the 
 foreign lady." 
 
 Mae laughed frankly, although she was great- 
 ly confused. The officer and the beggar boy 
 behind him waited expectantly. " I shook my 
 hand at my thoughts," she explained. " I did 
 not see the boy. Forgive me, Signor, for my 
 hasty words." 
 
 The officer enjoyed her confusion quietly. 
 He threw a handful of small coin at the beggar, 
 and bade him go. Then he turned again to 
 3 
 
44 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Mae. " I am sorry, Signorina, that your 
 thoughts are sad. I should think they would 
 all be like sweet smiles." He said this with an 
 indescribable delicacy and gallantry, as if he 
 half feared to speak to her, but his sympathy 
 must needs express itself. 
 
 Mae was, as we have seen, in a reckless, wild 
 mood. She did not realize what she was doing. 
 She had just broken down all barriers in her 
 mind, was dead to her old life, and ready to plan 
 for Heaven. And here before her stood a 
 wonderful, sympathizing, new friend, who spoke 
 in a strange tongue, lived in a strange land, was 
 as far removed from her old-time people and 
 society as an inhabitant of Saturn, or an angel. 
 She accepted him under her excitement, as she 
 would have accepted them. No waiting for 
 an introduction, no formal Betting-acquainted 
 talk, no reserve. She looked into the devoted, 
 interested eyes above her, and said frankly : 
 
 " I was feeling all alone, and I hate Rome. I 
 thought I would like to play I was dead, and 
 plan out a Heaven for myself. It should not be 
 in Rome. And then I suppose I shook my fist." 
 
 " Where would your Heaven be? " asked the 
 Piedmontese, falling quickly, with ready south- 
 ern sympathy, into her mood. Mae seated her- 
 
MAE MADDEN. 45 
 
 self on the bench and made room for him at 
 her side. 
 
 " Where should it be?" she repeated. u Down 
 among the children of the sun, all out in the 
 rich orange fields, by the blue Bay of Naples, 
 I think, with Vesuvius near by, and Capri; yes, 
 it would be in Sorrento that I should find my 
 heaven." 
 
 The officer smiled under his long moustaches. 
 " For three days, at a hotel, Signorina." 
 
 " No, no; with the peasants. I am tired and 
 sick of books, and people, and reasons. Shall 
 I give you a day of my Heaven?" 
 
 Bero smiled and bent slightly forward and 
 rested his hand lightly on the stick of her para- 
 sol, which lay between them. " Go on," he 
 said. 
 
 u I would fill my apron with sweet flowers 
 and golden fruit great oranges, and those frag- 
 rant, delicious tiny mandarins and I would get 
 a crowd of little Italians about me, all a-bab- 
 bling their pretty, pretty tongue, and I would go 
 down to the bay and get in an anchored boat, 
 and lie there all the morning, catching the sun- 
 light in my eyes, trimming the brown babies 
 and the boat with flowers , looking off at the 
 water and the clouds, tossing the pretty fruit, 
 
46 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 and laughing, and playing, and enjoying. Later, 
 there'd be a run on the beach, and a ride on a 
 donkey, and a dance, with delirious music and 
 frolic. And then the moon and quiet, and I 
 would steal away from the crowd, and take a 
 little boat, and float and drift 
 
 " Alone?" asked Bero, softly. "Surely, you 
 wouldn't condemn a mountaineer's yellow mous- 
 tache, or a soldier's spurs and sword, if at heart 
 he was really a child of the sun also? May I 
 share your day of Heaven ? It would be para- 
 dise for me, too." All this in the same soft, 
 deferential manner. 
 
 " Well, well,'' half laughed, half sighed Mae. 
 " All this is a dream, unless, indeed, I go home 
 with Lisetta." 
 
 u WhoisLisetta?" 
 
 u QiiYpadrona's cousin. She is here on a visit. 
 She lives within a mile of Sorrento, on the coast. 
 She goes home at the end of Carnival. Oh, how 
 I do long for Carnival," continued Mae, frankly 
 and confidentially. u Don't you? I am like a 
 child over it. I am trying already to persuade 
 Eric that is my brother to take me down on 
 the Corso the last night, for the Mocoletti. It 
 would be much better fun than staying on our 
 balcony." 
 
MAE MADDEN. 47 
 
 "Where is your balcony?" asked Bero, strok- 
 ing his long moustaches. 
 
 "It is on the corner of Maria e Jesu, and 
 if I ever see you coming by, I shall be tempted 
 to pepper your pretty uniform. How beautiful 
 it is!" 
 
 " Yes," replied Bero, again gazing proudly 
 down at his lithe figure, in its well-fitting 
 clothes, " but I would be willing to be showered 
 with confetti daily to see you. How shall I 
 know you? What is to be the color of your 
 domino?" And he bent forward, hitting his 
 spurs against the paving stones, flashing his deep 
 eyes, and half reaching out his hand, in that 
 same tender, respectful -way. 
 
 Mae saw the sunlight strike his hair; she half 
 heard his deep breath; and, like a flood, there 
 suddenly swept over her the knowledge that 
 this new friend, this sympathizing soul, was an 
 unknown man, and that she was a girl. What 
 had she done? What could she do? Confu- 
 sion and embarrassment suddenly overtook her. 
 She bent her eyes away from those other eyes, 
 that were growing bolder and more tender in 
 their gaze. "I I " she began, and just at 
 this very inauspicious moment, while she sat 
 there, flushed, by the stranger's side, the clatter 
 
48 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 of swiftly-approaching wheels sounded, and a 
 carriage turned the corner, containing Mrs. Jer- 
 rold, Edith, Albert, and Norman Mann. They 
 all saw her. 
 
 Mae laughed. It was such a dreadful situa- 
 tion that it was funny, and she laughed again. 
 u Those are my friends, 1 ' she said, in a low voice. 
 u We can walk away," replied the officer, and 
 turned his face in the opposite direction. u It is 
 too late; and, besides, why should we?" And 
 Mae looked full in his face, then turned to the 
 carriage, which was close upon them. 
 
 "How do you all do? 1 ' she cried, gleefully 
 and bravely. " Isn't there room for me in there ? 
 Mrs. Jerrold, I would like to introduce Signor 
 your name?" she said, quite clearly, in Italian, 
 turning to the officer. 
 
 " Bero," he replied. 
 
 u Signor Bero. He was very kind, and saved 
 me from from a little beggar boy." 
 
 u You must have been in peril, indeed," re- 
 marked Mrs. Jerrold, bowing distantly to Bero, 
 and beckoning the coachman, as Mae sprang 
 into the carriage, to drive on. " I am sorry to 
 put you on the box, Norman," Mrs. Jerrold 
 added, as Mae took the seat, in silence, that Mr. 
 Mann had vacated for her, " and I hope Miss 
 
MAE MADDEN. 49 
 
 Mae is also." But Mae didn't hear this. She 
 was plucking up courage in her heart, and 
 assuming a saucy enough expression, that sat 
 well on her bright face. Indeed, she was a 
 pretty picture, as she sat erect, with lips and 
 nostrils a trifle distended, and her head a little 
 in the air. The Italian thought so, as he walked 
 away, smiling softly, clicking his spurs and 
 stroking his moustache; and Norman Mann 
 thought so too, as he tapped his cane rest- 
 lessly on the dash-board and scowled at the left 
 ear of the off horse. The party preserved an 
 amazed and stiff silence, as they drove home- 
 ward. 
 
 u Eric," cried Norman, very late that same 
 night. " Do be sober, I have something to say 
 to you about Miss Mae." 
 
 " Norman, old boy, how can a fellow of my 
 make be sober when he has drunk four glasses 
 of wine, waltzed fifteen times, and torn six 
 flounces from a Paris dress? Why, man, I am 
 delirious, I am. Tra, la, la, tra, la, la. Oh, 
 Norman, if you could have heard that waltz," 
 and Eric seized his companion in his big arms 
 and started about the room in a mad dance. 
 " You are Miss Hopkins, Norman, you are 
 Here goes but Norman struck out a bold 
 
50 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 stroke that nearly staggered Eric and broke 
 loose. " For Heaven's sake, Eric, stop this fool- 
 ing; I want to speak to you earnestly. 1 ' 
 
 u Evidently," replied Eric, with excited face, 
 " forcibly also. Blows belong after words, not 
 before," and the' big boy tramped indignantly 
 off to bed. 
 
 Norman Mann was in earnest truly, forcible 
 also, for he opened his mouth to let out a very 
 expressive word as Eric left the room. It did 
 him good seemingly, for he strode up and down 
 more quietly. At last he sat down and began 
 to talk with himself. * l Norman Mann, you've 
 got to do it all alone," he said. u Albert and 
 Edith and Aunt Martha are too vexed and 
 shocked to do the little rebel any good. Ric, 
 oh, dear, Ric is a silly boy, Grod bless him, and 
 here I am doomed to make that child hate me, 
 and with no possible authority over her, or 
 power, for that matter, trying to keep her from 
 something terribly wild. If they don't look 
 out, she will break loose. I knoAv her well, and 
 there's strong character under this storm a-top, 
 if only some one could get at it. Damn it." 
 Norman grew forcible again. " Why can't I 
 keep my silly eyes away from her, and go off 
 with the fellows. You see," continued Norman, 
 
MAE MADDEN. 51 
 
 still addressing his patient double, " she is a 
 rebel, and pshaw, I daresay it is half my fancy, 
 but I hate that long moustached officer. I 
 wish he would be summoned to the front and be 
 shot. 0, I forgot, there's no war. Well, then, 
 I wish he would fall in love with any body but 
 Mae. It must be late. Ric didn't leave that 
 little party very early, I'm sure, but I can't 
 sleep. I'll get down my Sismondi and read 
 awhile. I wonder if that child is feeling badly 
 now. I half believe she is but here's my 
 book. 1 ' 
 
 Yes, Mae was feeling badly, heart-brokenly, 
 all alone in her room. After a long, harrowing 
 talk with Mrs. Jerrold, at the close of which she 
 had received commands never to go out alone in 
 Rome, because it wasn't proper, she had been al- 
 lowed to depart for her own room. Here she 
 closed the door leading into Mrs. Jerrold's and 
 Edith's apartment, and opened her window 
 wide, and held her head out in the night air 
 the poisonous Roman air. The street was very 
 quiet. Now and then some late wayfarer passed 
 under the light at the corner, but Mae had, 
 on the whole, a desolate outlook high, dark 
 buildings opposite, and black clouds above, with 
 only here and there a star peeping through. 
 
52 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 She had taken down her long hair, thrown 
 off her dress, and half wrapped herself in a 
 shawl, out of which her bare arms stretched as 
 she leaned on the deep window seat. She looked 
 like the first woman of the Darwinian, not the 
 Biblical, Creation. There was a wild, half-hunt- 
 ed expression on her face that was like the set 
 air of an animal brought suddenly to bay. She 
 thought in little jerks, quick sentences that 
 were almost like the barking growls with which 
 a beast lashes itself to greater fury. 
 
 "They treated me unfairly. They had no 
 right. I shall choose my own friends. How 
 dare they accuse me of flirting ? I flirt, pah ! 
 I'd like to run away. This stupid, stupid life! " 
 And so on till the sentences grew more human. 
 " I suppose Mr. Mann thinks I am horrid, but I 
 don't care. I wish I could see Eric, he wouldn't 
 blame me so. What a goose I am to mind 
 anyway. The Carnival is coming! Even these 
 old tombs must give way for ten whole riotous 
 days. I must make them madly merry days. 
 I wonder how I will look in my domino. I sup- 
 pose the pink one is mine.' 1 
 
 So Miss Mae dried her eyes, picked her desha- 
 bille self from the window seat, turned up the 
 light, slipped into her pink and white car- 
 nival attire, and walked to the window again. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 53 
 
 " This is the Corso all full of people, and I'll 
 pelt them merrily, so, and so, and so!" She 
 reached forth her bare, round arm into the dark- 
 ness, and looked down, where, full under the 
 street light, gazing up at her, stood the Pied- 
 montese officer. 
 
 It was at that very moment that Norman 
 Mann put down his Sismondi, and looked 
 from his window also. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ,1AE met Mr. Mann at the breakfast 
 table the next morning without the 
 least embarrassment. Indeed, the lit- 
 tle flutter in her talk could easily be 
 attributed to unusually high spirits and an 
 excited and pleased fancy. That was how Nor- 
 man Mann translated it, of course. Really, the 
 flutter was a genuine stirring of her heart with 
 inquietude, timidity and semi-repentance ; but 
 Mae couldn't say this, and it's only what one 
 says out that can be reckoned on in this 
 world. So Norman Mann, who saw only the 
 bright cheeks and eyes and restless quickening 
 of an eager girl and did not see the palpitating 
 feminine heart inside, was displeased and half- 
 cold. 
 
 Could any one be long cold to Mae Madden ? 
 She believed not. She was quite accustomed 
 to lightning-like white heats of anger in those 
 with whom she came in contact, but coldness 
 was out of her line. Still she met the occasion 
 well. " Shall I give you some coffee?" she 
 asked, pleasantly. " We breakfast all alone, 
 
MAE MADDEN 55 
 
 until Eric appears. Mrs. Jerrold is not well, 
 and Edith and Albert are off for Frascati." 
 
 " Poor child; how much alone she is," he 
 thought to himself. 
 
 " I understand we all go to the play to- 
 night?" queried Mae. 
 
 " The thought of Shakspeare dressed in 
 Italian is not pleasant to me," said Mr. Mann, 
 after a silence of a few minutes. 
 
 " I am quite longing to see him in his new 
 clothes. There is so much softness and beauty 
 in Italian that I expect to gain new ideas from 
 hearing the play robed in more flowing phras- 
 es. Shakspeare certainly is for all the world." 
 
 " But Shakspeare's words are so strongly 
 chosen that they are a great element in his 
 great plays. And a translation at best is some- 
 thing of a parody, especially a translation from 
 a northern tongue, with its force and back- 
 bone, so to speak, into a southern, serpentine, 
 gliding language. You have heard the absurd 
 rendering of that passage from Macbeth where 
 the witches salute him with ' Hail to thee, 
 Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! ' into 
 such French as ''Comment vous portez vous, 
 Monsieur Macbeth; comment vous portez vous, 
 Monsieur Thane de Cawdor!' A translation 
 
56 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 must pass through the medium of another 
 mind, and other minds like Shakspeare's are 
 hard to find." 
 
 Norman spoke with so much reverence for 
 Mae's greatest idol that her heart warmed and 
 she smiled approval, though for argument's 
 sake she remained on the other side. 
 
 u Isn't a translation more like an engraver's 
 art, and aren't fine engravings to be sought and 
 admired even when we know the great original 
 in its glory of color? Then all writing is only 
 translation, not copying. Shakspeare had to 
 translate the tongues he found in stones, the 
 books he found in brooks, with twenty-six 
 little characters and his great mind, into what 
 we all study, and love, and strive after. But 
 he had to use these twenty-six characters in 
 certain hard, Anglo-Saxon forms and confine 
 himself to them. When he wanted to talk about 
 
 u fen-sucked fogs," 
 
 and such damp, shivery places, he is all right, 
 but when he sings of 4 love's light wings,' and 
 all that nonsense, he is impeded ; now open to 
 him ' Italian, the language of angels ' you 
 know the old rhyme and see what a chance 
 he has among the u liquid 1's and bell-voiced 
 m's and crushed tz's." To-night you will hear 
 
MAE MADDEN. 57 
 
 Desdemona call Othello ' II mio marito, 1 in a 
 way that will start the tears. What are the stiff 
 English words to that ? ' My husband ! ' Hus- 
 band is a very uneuphonious name, I think. 11 
 
 Norman Mann smiled. "Another cup of 
 coffee, if you please not quite as sweet as the 
 last, 11 and he passed his cup. ;i I believe there 
 is always a charm in a novel word that has not 
 been commonized by the crowd. ' Dear ' 
 means very little to us nowadays, because 
 every school girl is every other school girl's 
 1 dear, 1 and elderly ladies ' my dear ^ the 
 world at large, in a pretty and benevolent way. 
 So with the words 'husband 1 and 'wife 1 ; we hear 
 them every day in commonest speech ' the 
 coachman and his wife, 1 or ' Sally Jones's hus- 
 band,' but I take it this is when we stand 
 outside. That wonderful little possessive pro- 
 noun my has a great, thrilling power. l My 
 husband 1 will be as fine to your ears as l il 
 mio marito, 1 which has, after all, a slippery, un- 
 certain sound ; and as for l my wife ? - 
 
 At that moment the coffee cup, which was 
 on its way back, had reached the middle of the 
 table, where by right it should have been met 
 and guided by the steadier, masculine hand ; 
 Norman's hand was there in readiness, but in- 
 
58 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 stead of gently removing the cup from Mae's 
 clasp, it folded itself involuntarily about the 
 white, round wrist, as he paused on these last 
 words. Was it the little possessive pronoun 
 that sent the sudden thrill through the unex- 
 pecting wrist? At any rate it trembled ; the 
 cup, the saucer, the coffee, the spoon, followed 
 a well known precedent, and " went to pieces 
 all at once;" " all at once and nothing first just 
 as bubbles do when they burst." And so alas ! 
 did the conversation, and that burst a beautiful 
 bubble Norman had just blown. 
 
 Damages were barely repaired when Eric en- 
 tered the breakfast room with a petulant sort 
 of face and flung himself into a chair. u My! 
 what a head I have on me this morning," he 
 groaned. " Soda water would be worth all the 
 coffee in the world, Mae ; I'll take it black, 
 if you please. How cosy you two look. 
 I always take too much of every thing 
 at a party, from flirtation to 0, Mae, 
 you needn't look so sad. I'm not the one in 
 disgrace now. Mrs. Jerrold, Edith and Albert 
 are just piping mad at you, and as for Mann, 
 here, by the way," and Eric rubbed his fore- 
 head, as if trying to sharpen up a still sleepy 
 memory, " I suppose you two have had it out 
 
MAE MADDEN. 59 
 
 by .this time. Norman sat up till ever so late 
 to talk you over with me, Mae. Do thank 
 him lor me ; I am under the impression that I 
 didn't do so last night." 
 
 Mae tapped her fourth finger, on which a small 
 ring glistened, sharply against the cream jug. 
 " If I were every body's pet lamb or black 
 sheep, I couldn't have more shepherd's crooks 
 about me. Have you joined the laudable band, 
 Mr. Mann, and am I requested to thank you 
 for that?" 
 
 " Not at all. Perhaps your Brother's remem- 
 brances of last night are not very distinct. I 
 certainly sat up for Sismondi's sake, not for 
 yours." And he really thought, for the mo- 
 ment, that he told the truth. 
 
 u I warn you," continued Mae, rising as she 
 spoke, u that I have a tremendous retinue of 
 mentors, and nurses, and governesses already. 
 You had better content yourself with the fact 
 that you have four proper traveling compan- 
 ions, and bear the disgrace of being shocked 
 as best you may by one wild scrap of feminin- 
 ity who will have her own way in spite of you 
 all." Mae half laughed, but she was serious, 
 and the boys both knew it. 
 
 " You flatter me," replied Norman. " I had 
 4 
 
60 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 aspired to no such position, but for your broth- 
 er's sake, if not for your own, I wished to tell 
 Eric that the Roman air at midnight was dan- 
 gerous to your health. I saw you had your 
 window open." 
 
 " Did you look through the ceiling, pray? " 
 Mae retorted from the door-way. " Eric, ring if 
 you want anything. Rosetta is close at hand." 
 
 " I have put my foot in it this time," said 
 Eric, clumsily. " I am real sorry, Norman, old 
 boy." 
 
 Norman did not feel like being pitied, and this 
 remark of Eric's roused him. He fairly ground 
 his teeth and clenched his hands, but his big 
 brown moustache and the tablecloth hid these 
 outer manifestations of anger. u Don't be a 
 goose, Ric," he said. " What possible difference 
 can all this make to me? Your sister is young 
 and quick." 
 
 Now, it was Eric's turn to wince. Was he 
 giving this fellow the impression that he 
 thought his sister's opinions would affect 
 him? Horrible suspicion ! Boys always fan- 
 cy everybody in love with their sister. He 
 must cure that at once. " Of course," hs 
 replied quickly, u I know vou and Mae never 
 agree, that you barely stand each other. But 
 
MAE MADDEN. 61 
 
 I didn't know but you would prefer to be on 
 good terms with her, for all that." 
 
 u Miss Mae can choose the terms on which 
 we meet. I shall be content whatever her de- 
 cision. What are your plans for the day? " 
 
 Lounging Eric straightened himself at once. 
 " I was a perfect fool last night," he confessed, 
 " and I must rely on you, old fellow, to help 
 me out. I made engagements for two weeks 
 ahead with Miss Hopkins and Miss Rae. At 
 any rate, I'm booked for the play to-night. 
 Now, I can't take two girls very well. That 
 is, I can, but I thought you might like a show. 
 You may have your choice of the two. Miss 
 Rae, by the way, says she's wild to know you ; 
 thought you were the most provoking man she 
 ever saw; and that you were nonsensical idea 
 engaged to Mae. All because you wouldn't 
 look at her the other day when she passed you 
 two. But you can go with Miss Hopkins, if 
 you prefer." 
 
 "Are they pretty?" asked Norman, appar- 
 ently warming to the task, " and bright? " 
 
 " I should say they were. Miss Hopkins has 
 gorgeous great eyes, but Miss Rae is more 
 your style. Still, you may have your choice." 
 
 "Silly boy; you're afraid to death that I 
 
62 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 shall choose Miss Hopkins. Well, if they are 
 not over stupid and flirtatious " 
 
 u Stupid ! Oh, no, 1 ' Eric scouted that idea 
 " and flirtatious, perhaps. Miss Hopkins rolls 
 her eyes a good deal, but then she has a frank- 
 ness, a winning way." 
 
 "Well," laughed Norman, "you're such a 
 transparent, susceptible infant-in-arms that Til 
 go with you." 
 
 u As shepherd," suggested Eric, u as long as 
 Mae won't have you. But conie, we must go 
 down and call on these people. It won't do at 
 all for you to appear suddenly this evening, and 
 say, l I'll relieve my friend here of one of 
 you.' " 
 
 " Oh, what a bore. Is that necessary? Won't 
 a card or a box of Still man's bon-bons do them ? 
 Well, if it must be, come along, then." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 T was evening, and the brilliantly 
 lighted theatre was crowded to over- 
 flowing. Of course there were En- 
 glish who scowled at the Americans, 
 and Americans who smiled on every one and 
 ate candy while Othello writhed in jealous rage, 
 and a scattering of Germans with spectacles 
 and a row of double-barrelled field glasses 
 glued over them, and Frenchmen with impu- 
 dent eyes arid elegant gloves, and a general 
 filling in of Italians, with the glitter here and 
 there of nobility, and still oftener of bright 
 uniforms. Finally there was a modicum of 
 true gentry, and these not of any particular 
 nation or class. It is pleasant to name our 
 party immediately after referring to these 
 goodly folks. They had a fine box, and al- 
 though their ranks were thinned by the loss 
 of two cavaliers, nobody seemed to care. Al- 
 bert and Edith were perfectly happy side by 
 side, and Mrs. Jerrold was well contented to 
 observe her daughter's smile as Albert spoke to 
 her, and the look of manly protection in his 
 eyes, as his gaze met Edith's. 
 
64 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 As for Mae, she had that delicious feminine 
 pride which is as good a stimulant as success to 
 women in emergencies. And to-night was 
 an emergency to this small, excitable, young 
 thing. Her eyes were very dark from the 
 expansion of the pupil. They possessed a rare 
 charm, caught from a trick the eyelids had of 
 drooping slowly and then suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly lifting to reveal the wide, bright 
 depths, that half-concealed, half-revealed power, 
 which is so tantalizing. Mae was dressed 
 in this same spirit to-night, and she was 
 dimly conscious of it. The masses of tulle 
 that floated from her opera hat to her 
 chin and down on her shoulders, revealed only 
 here and there a glimpse of rich brown hair, or 
 of white throat. Her cheeks were scarlet, her 
 lips a-quiver with excitement and pleasure. 
 She formed a pretty contrast to Edith, who sat 
 by her side. Miss Jerrold leaned back in her 
 chair quietly, composedly. She fanned herself 
 in long sweeps, looked pleased, contented, but 
 in no wise displaced or surprised thoroughly 
 well-bred and at home. She might have had a 
 private rehearsal of Othello in her own dra- 
 matic hall the evening before, from her air and 
 mien. Mae, on the contrary, was alert, on the 
 
MAE MADDEN. 65 
 
 qui vive, as interested as a child in each new- 
 comer, and, after the curtain rose, in every 
 tableau. 
 
 Such a woman can not fail to attract atten- 
 tion, as long as she is herself unconscious. 
 The world grows blase so speedily that it 
 enjoys all the more thoroughly the sight of 
 freshness, verve, life, that is, the male portion 
 of the world. Women's great desire, as a rule, 
 is to appear entirely at ease, city-bred, high- 
 bred, used to all things, surprised by none. 
 
 So there* were a great many glasses turned 
 toward Mae that evening. Very probably the 
 young women in the next box accepted a share 
 of these glances as their own, and, in a crowd 
 where the French and Italian elements predom- 
 inate, or largely enter, they could not have been 
 far wrong. Every girl or woman who pretends 
 to any possible charm is quite sure of her share of 
 admiration from these susceptible beings. 
 The young ladies of the next box had 
 that indescribable New York air, which extends 
 from the carefully brushed eyebrows quite to 
 the curves of the wrist and hand. Praise Paris- 
 ian modes all you will, but for genuine style, 
 a New York girl, softened a trifle by common- 
 sense or good taste, leads the world certainly 
 
66 MAS MADDEN. 
 
 if she is abroad. For there she soon finds it 
 impossible to go to the extremes that American 
 air seems to rush her into. Three months, or 
 perhaps, if she is observant, three days in Paris, 
 teach her that the very biggest buttons, or 
 the very largest paniers, or the very flaringest 
 hats are not for her, or any lady, and by step- 
 ping back to size number two, she does not 
 detract from her style, while she does add to her 
 lady-likeness. 
 
 These two girls, it may be surmised, were no 
 other than Miss Hopkins and Miss Rae, whom 
 chance or fate or bungling Eric Madden, who 
 bought the tickets, had seated side by side with 
 the Maddens and Jerrolds. It was bothersome, 
 when Norman and Eric had played truant at 
 any rate, but there was no help for it; so after a 
 little Eric introduced them all round, and the 
 two parties apparently merged into one, or 
 broke up into four, for tte-a-tetes soon began. 
 It was a little hard that three girls should have 
 each a devoted servant, and that only one, and 
 that one, Mae, should be obliged to receive her 
 care from the chaperon; but so it was. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mae bore herself proudly. She 
 was seated next Miss Rae, separated only by the 
 nominal barrier of a little railing, while just 
 
MAE MADDEN. 67 
 
 beyond sat Norman, his chair turned toward 
 the two girls. The stranger insisted on draw- 
 ing Mae into the conversation, partly for 
 curiosity's sake, to watch her odd face and man- 
 ners, partly from that genuine generosity that 
 comes to the most selfish of women, when she 
 is satisfied with her position. It is pleasant to 
 pity, to be generous; and Miss Rae, having the 
 man, could afford to share him now and then, 
 when it pleased her, with the lonely girl by her 
 side. But Miss Rae's tactics did not work. 
 Mae replied pleasantly when addressed, but 
 returned speedily and eagerly to Mrs. Jerrold 
 or a survey of the house, with the frank hap- 
 piness of a child. She was all the more fasci- 
 nating to the admiring eyes that -watched her, 
 because she sat alone, electrified by the in- 
 spiration and magnetism from within, and did 
 not need the stimulus of another voice close by 
 her side, breathing compliments and flattery, to 
 brighten her eyes and call the blushes to her 
 cheeks. Norman Mann saw the eyes fixed on 
 her, and they vexed him. At the same time, he 
 liked her the better on that very account. 
 
 And at last the curtain rose. 
 
 It was just as Desdemona assures her father 
 of her love for Othello, that Mae became con- 
 
MADDEN. 
 
 scious of a riveted gaze of a presence. Lifting 
 her eyes, and widening them, she looked over 
 to the opposite side of the house, and there, of 
 course, was the Piedmontese officer again, hand- 
 somer, more brilliant than ever, with a grateful, 
 soft look of recognition in his eyes. 
 
 Mae was out of harmony with all her friends. 
 She was proud and lonely. The man's pleased, 
 softened look touched her heart strangely. 
 There was almost a choke in her throat, there 
 were almost tears in her eyes, and there was a 
 free, glad, welcoming smile on her lips. 
 
 Norman Mann saw it and followed it, and 
 caught the officer receiving it, and thought 
 "She's a wild coquette." 
 
 And Mae knew what he saw and what he 
 thought. 
 
 Then a strange spirit entered the girl. Here 
 was a man who vexed her, who piqued her, and 
 who was rude, for Mae secretly thought it was 
 rude to neglect Mrs. Jerrold, as the boys did that 
 evening, and yet who was vexed and piqued in 
 his turn, if she did what he didn't like and 
 looked at another man. 
 
 And then here was the other man. Mae 
 looked down at him. 
 
 Bless us! who is to blame a young woman 
 
MAE MADDEN. 69 
 
 for forgetting everything but the " other man" 
 when he is a godlike Piedmontese officer, with 
 strong soft cheek and throat, and Italian eyes, 
 and yellow moustaches, and spurs and buttons 
 that click and shinein a maddening sort of way ? 
 
 Of course, in reality, everybody is to blame 
 her, we among the very virtuous first. In this 
 particular case, however, we have facts, not mor- 
 als, to deal with. Mae did see Norman Mann talk- 
 ing delightedly to a pretty girl, and she did see 
 the officer gazing at her rapturously, and she 
 quite forgot Othello, and gave back look for look, 
 only more shy and less intense perhaps, and 
 knew that Norman Mann was very angry and 
 she and the officer very happy. What matter 
 though the one should hate her, and the other 
 love her, and she 
 
 But, bother all things but the delirious 
 present moment. Never fear consequences. 
 There were bright lights, and brilliant people, 
 the hum of many voices, the flash of many 
 eyes, and a half secret between her, this little 
 creature up in the box, and the very handsom- 
 est man of them all. 
 
 So while Othello fell about the stage, and 
 ground out tremendous curses, Mae half 
 shivered and glanced tremblingly toward Bero, 
 
70 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 and Bero gazed back protectingly and grandly. 
 Once, when Desdemona cried out thrillingly, 
 " Othello, il mio marito," Mae looked at Norman 
 involuntarily and caught a half flash of his 
 eye, but he turned back quickly to his compan- 
 ion and Mae's glance wandered on to Bero and 
 rested there as the wild voice cried out again, 
 " il mio marito, il mio marito." 
 
 So the evening slid on. Mae smiled and 
 smiled and opened and half closed her eyes, 
 and Norman invited Miss Rae to go to church 
 with him, and to drive with him, and to walk 
 with him, and to go to the galleries with him, 
 u until, Susie Hopkins, if you will believe it, I 
 fairly thought he would drop on his knees and 
 ask me to go through life with him, right then 
 and there." So Miss Rae confided to Susie Hop- 
 kins after the victorious night, in the silence 
 of a fourth-story Costanzi bedroom. 
 
 Susie Hopkins was putting her hair up on 
 crimping-pins, but she paused long enough to 
 say: " Well, Jack Durkee had better hurry 
 himself and his ring along, then." 
 
 u 0, he's coming as quickly as ever he can," 
 laughed Miss Rae,whereat she proceeded to place 
 a large letter and a picture under the left-hand 
 pillow, crimped her hair, cold-creamed her lips, 
 and laid her down to pleasant dreams of Jack. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AE was very much ashamed of herself 
 the next morning. She had been re- 
 stored in a measure to popular favor, 
 through Eric, the day before. Edith 
 and Albert were home from Frascati, when Eric 
 made his raid bravely on their forces combined 
 with those of Mrs. Jerrold. He advanced boldly. 
 " It's all nonsense, child, as she is," he said. 
 " It was natural enough, to talk with the man," 
 for Mae had made a clean breast of her misdo- 
 ings to him, to the extent of saying that they 
 had chatted after the beggar left. u Do forgive 
 her, poor little proud tot, away across the sea 
 from her mother. Albert, you're as hard as a 
 rock, and that Edith has no spirit in her," he 
 added, under his breath. This remark made Al- 
 bert white with rage. Nevertheless, he put in a 
 plea for his wayward, reckless little sister, with 
 effect. After a few more remarks from Mrs. 
 Jerrold, Mae came out of the ordeal; was treated 
 naturally, and, as we have seen, accompanied 
 Mrs. Jerrold to the play the night before. 
 Now, it was the next day. Mrs. Jerrold 
 
72 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 breakfasted in her own room again, and spent 
 the hours in writing home letters full of the 
 Peter and Paul reminiscences and quotations. 
 Norman and Eric left for the Costanzi, and 
 Albert and Edith, armed with books, and 
 note-books, and the small camp-stools, again 
 started away together. This last l again ' was 
 getting to be accepted quite as a matter of course. 
 Everybody knew what it meant. They always 
 invited the rest of the company to go with 
 them, and were especially urgent, this morn- 
 ing, that Mae should accompany them. 
 
 "Why, with mamma in her room you will 
 be lonely," suggested Edith, " and you can't go 
 out by yourself." 
 
 Mae winced inwardly at this, but replied 
 pleasantly: "I have letters to write also, and 
 I'm not in the mood to-day for pictures, and 
 the cold, chilling galleries filled with the damp 
 breath of the ages." 
 
 So Edith and Albert, nothing loth, having 
 discharged their duty, started off. These two 
 have as yet appeared only in the background, 
 and may have assumed a half-priggish air in op- 
 position and contrast to Mae. They really, how- 
 ever, were very interesting young people. Albert 
 with a strong desire in his heart or was it in his 
 
MAE MADDEN. 73 
 
 head? to aid the world, and Edith with a clear 
 self-possessidn and New England shrewdness 
 that helped and pleased him. Their travels 
 were enriching them both. Edith was trying 
 to draw the soul from all the great pictures 
 and some of the lesser ones, and Albert was 
 waking, through her influence, to the world of 
 art. This morning they were on their way to 
 the Transfiguration to study the scornful sis- 
 ter. They were taking the picture bit by bit, 
 color by color, face by face. There are advan- 
 tages in this analytical study, yet there is a 
 chance of losing the spirit of the whole. So 
 Mae thought and said: "I know that sister 
 now, Edith, better than you ever will." This 
 was while she was looping up her friend's 
 dress here, and pulling out a fold there, in that 
 destructive way girls have of beautifying each 
 other. u See here!" 
 
 And down sank Miss Mae on her knees, with 
 her lips curved, and her hands stretched out 
 imploringly, half-mockingly. No need of words 
 to say: u Save my brother, behold him. Ah, 
 you cannot do it, your power is boast. Yet, 
 save him, pray." 
 
 u A little more yellow in my hair, some pearls 
 and a pink gown, and you might have the sis- 
 
74 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ter to study in a living model, Edith," laughed 
 Mae, arising. 
 
 Edith and Albert were both struck by Mae's 
 dramatic force, and they talked of her as they 
 drove to the Vatican. u I wish I understood 
 her better," said Edith. " I cannot feel as if 
 travel were doing her good. She is changing 
 so ; she was always odd, but then she was 
 always happy. Now she has her moods, and 
 there is a look in her eye I am afraid of. It is 
 almost savage. You would think the beauty 
 in Rome would delight her nature, for she 
 craves beauty and poetry in everything. I don't 
 believe the theatre is good for her. Albert, 
 suppose we give up our tickets for Thursday 
 night." 
 
 u But you want particularly to see that play, 
 Edith." 
 
 " I can easily give it up for Mae's sake. It 
 would be cruel to go without her, and I think 
 excitement is bad for her." 
 
 u You are very generous, Edith, and right, 
 too, I dare say. I wish my little sister could 
 see pleasure and duty through your steadier, 
 clearer eyes." 
 
 Then the steady, clear eyes dropped suddenly, 
 and the two forgot all about Mae, and rolled 
 
MAE MADDEN. 75 
 
 contentedly off, behind the limping Italian 
 horse. And the red-cheeked vetturino with the 
 flower in his button-hole, whistled a love-song, 
 and thought of his Piametta, I suppose. 
 
 Meantime, Mae, left to herself, grew penitent 
 and reckless by turns, blushed alternately with 
 shame and with quick pulse-beats, as she re- 
 membered Norman Mann's face, or the officer's 
 smile. She wondered where he lived, and 
 whether she would see him soon again. Poor 
 child ! She was really innocent, and only dimly 
 surmised how he would haunt her hereafter. 
 Would he look well in citizen's clothes? How- 
 would Norman Mann seem in his uniform ? She 
 wished she had a jacket cut like his. And so on 
 in an indolent way. But penitence was getting 
 the better of her, and after vainly trying to read 
 or write, she settled herself down for a cry. To 
 think that she, Mae Madden, could have acted so 
 absurdly. She never would forgive herself, never. 
 Then she cried some more, a good deal more. 
 
 About four in the afternoon a very bright 
 sunbeam peeped through her closed blinds, and 
 she brushed away her tears, and peace came 
 back to her small heart, and she felt like a New 
 England valley after a shower, very fresh and 
 5 
 
76 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 clean, and goodly, justja trifle subdued, how- 
 ever. 
 
 She would go to church. She had heard that 
 there was lovely music at vespers, in the little 
 church at the foot of Capo le Case. St. Andrea 
 delle Frate, was it? It wasn't very far away. 
 She could say her prayers and repent en- 
 tirely and wholly. So she dressed rapidly, sing- 
 ing the familiar old Te Deum joyously all the 
 while^ and off she started. 
 
 The air was cool and clear and delicious and 
 the street-scenes were pretty. Mae took in 
 everything before her as she left the house, from 
 the Barberini fountain to the groups of models 
 at the corner of the Square and the Via Felice ; 
 but she did not see, at some distance behind 
 her, on the opposite side of the street, the sud- 
 den start of a motionless figure as she left the 
 house, or know that it straightened itself and 
 moved along as she did, kirning on to the pretty 
 Via Sistina, so down the hill at Capo le Case, to 
 the church below. 
 
 She was early for vespers, arid there was only 
 the music singing in her own happy little heart 
 as she entered the quiet place. The contrast 
 between the spot, with its shrines and symbols 
 and aids to faith, and all that she had asso- 
 
MAE MADDEN. 77 
 
 ciated with religion, conspired to separate her 
 from herself and her past, and left her a bit of 
 breathing, worshiping life, praising the great 
 Giver of Life. She fell on her knees in an ex- 
 alted, jubilate spirit. She was more like a 
 Praise-the-Lord psalm of David than like a 
 young girl of the nineteenth century. 
 
 And yet close behind her, a little to the left, 
 was Bero on his knees too, at his pater nosters. 
 
 By and by the music began. It was music 
 beyond description ; those wonderful male voices, 
 the chorus of young boys, and then suddenly, 
 the organ and some one wild falsetto carrying 
 the great Latin soul-laden words up higher. 
 
 All this while Mae's head was bent low and 
 her heart was a-praying. 
 
 All this while Bero was on his knees also, but 
 his eyes were on Mae. 
 
 The music ceased; the prayers were ended. 
 Mae heard indistinctly the sweep of trailing 
 skirts, the sound of footsteps on the marble 
 floor, the noise of voices as the people went 
 away, but still she did not move. The selah 
 pause had come after the psalm. 
 
 When she did rise, and turn, and start to go, 
 her eyes fell on the kneeling form. She tried 
 to pass quickly without recognition, but he 
 reached out his hand. 
 
78 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 " This is a church," said Mae ; u my prayers 
 are sacred; do not disturb me." 
 
 He held his rosary toward her, with the cross 
 at the end tightly clasped in his hand. u My 
 prayers are here, too, 1 ' he said. u Oh, Signor- 
 ina, give me one little prayer, one of your little 
 prayers." 
 
 He knelt before her in the quiet, dim, half 
 light, his hands clasped, and an intense earn- 
 estness in his easily moved Italian soul, that 
 floated up to his face. It looked like beautiful 
 penitence and faith to Mae. Here was a soul in 
 sympathy with hers, one which met her harmo- 
 niously in every mood, slid into her dreams and 
 wild wishes, sparkled with her enjoyment, 
 and now knelt as she knelt, and asked for 
 one of her prayers. 
 
 She stood a minute irresolute. Then she 
 smiled down on him a full, rich smile, and 
 said in English : " God bless you." The next 
 moment she was gone. 
 
 Bero made no movement to follow her, but 
 remained quietly on his knees, his head bowed 
 low. 
 
 ^c * * # * # * 
 
 u I looked in at St. Andrea's, at vespers," said 
 that dear, bungling fellow, Eric, at dinner that 
 
MAE MADDEN. 79 
 
 night, " and saw you Mae, but you were so 
 busy with your prayers I came away/' There 
 was a pause, and Mae knew that people looked 
 at her. 
 
 " Yes, I was there ; the music was wonder- 
 ful." 
 
 " Mae," asked Mrs. Jerrold, u Do you have 
 to go to a Roman Catholic Church to say your 
 prayers ?" For Mrs. Jerrold was a Puritan of the 
 Puritans, and had breathed in the shorter cate- 
 chism and the doctrine of election with the 
 mountain air and sea-salt of her childhood. 
 Possibly the two former had had as much to do 
 as the latter with her angularity and severe 
 strength. 
 
 " Indeed," cried Mae, impulsively, " I wish I 
 could always enter a church to say my prayers. 
 There is so much to help one there." 
 
 " Is there any danger of your becoming a 
 Romanist ? " enquired Mrs. Jerrold, pushing 
 the matter further. 
 
 u I wish there were a chance of my becom- 
 ing anything half as good, but I am afraid 
 there isn't. Still, I turn with an occasional 
 loyal heart-beat to the great Mother Church, 
 that the rest of you have all run away from." 
 " Yes, you have," Mae shook her head decidedly 
 
80 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 at Edith. u She may be a cruel mother. I 
 know you all think she's like the old woman 
 who lived in a shoe, and that she whips her 
 children and sends them supperless to bed, and 
 gives them a stone for bread, but she's the mo- 
 ther of all of us, notwithstanding." 
 
 " What a dreadful mixture of Mother Goose 
 and Holy Bible," exclaimed Eric, laughingly, 
 while Mae cooled oft, and Mrs. Jerrold stared 
 amazedly, wondering how to take this tirade. She 
 concluded at last that it would be better to let 
 it pass as one of Mae's extravagances, so she 
 ended the conversation by saying: "I hope, 
 Eric, you will wait for your sister, if you see 
 her alone, at church. It is not the thing for 
 her to go by herself." 
 
 u No," added Albert, " we shall have to buy 
 a chain for you soon." 
 
 " If you do," said Mae quietly, " I'll slip it." 
 And not another prayer did she say that night. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 T was, the first day of Carnival. The 
 determination to enjoy herself was 
 so strong in Mae, that her face fairly 
 shone with her u good time coming." 
 She popped her head out of the doorway, and 
 flung a big handful of confetti right at Eric, 
 but he dodged, and Norman Mann caught it in 
 his face. Then, seeing a try-to-be-dignified look 
 creeping upon Mae, he seized the golden 
 moment, gathered up such remnants of confetti 
 as were tangled in his hair and whiskers, and 
 flung them back again, shouting: u Long live 
 King Pasquino ! So his reign has begun, 
 has it?' 1 
 
 a Yes; King Pasquino is lord, now, for ten 
 whole days," and she slowly edged her right 
 hand about, to take aim again at Nor- 
 man. He saw her, and frustrated the attempt 
 by catching it and emptying the contents, out 
 npon the floor. The little white balls rolled off 
 to the corners and the little hand fell slowly 
 by Mae's side. " Why not go down to the 
 Corso, you and I, and see the beginning of the 
 fun?" suggested Norman. 
 
82 MAR MADDEN. 
 
 " Come along," cried Mae, ;t you, too, Eric," 
 and the three started off like veritable children, 
 in a delightful, familiar, old-time way. Arrived 
 at their loggia, they found an old woman em- 
 ployed in filling, with confetti, a long line of 
 boxes, fastened to the balustrade of the balcony. 
 Little shovels, also, were provided, for dealing 
 out the tiny missals of war upon the heads be- 
 low. There were masks in waiting, some to be 
 tied on, while others terminated in a handle, 
 by a skilful use of which they could be made as 
 effective as a Spanish lady's fan. Mae chose 
 one of these latter. 
 
 The Corso was alive with vendors of small 
 bouquets and bon-bons and little flying birds 
 tied in live agony to round yellow oranges. 
 The fruit in turn was fastened to a long pole 
 and so thrust up to the balconies as a tempting 
 bait. If bought, the birds and flowers were 
 tossed together into the streets to a passing 
 friend. As Mae was gazing rapturously over 
 the balcony, laughing at the few stragglers 
 hurrying to the Piazza del Popolo, admiring the 
 bannered balconies and gay streamers, several 
 of these little birds were thrust up to her face, 
 some of them peeping piteously and flapping 
 their poor wings. She put up her hands and 
 
MAE MADDEN. 83 
 
 caught the oranges, one two three four. 
 In a moment she had freed the fluttering birds 
 and tossed the fruit back into the street. u Pay 
 them, Eric," she cried indignantly; "Why, 
 what is this?" for one of the little creatures, 
 after vainly flapping its wings, had fallen 
 on the balcony. Alae picked it up. It half 
 opened its eyes at her and then lay still in her 
 hands. 
 
 " It is dead," said Mae, quietly, going up to 
 Norman. " Oh! Mr. Mann, I thought Carnival 
 meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn't there any- 
 where in this big world where we can get free 
 from such dreadful things? Well!" she added, 
 impatiently, as Norman paused. 
 
 " Give a slow fellow who likes the world bet- 
 ter than you do, time to apologize for it," re- 
 plied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have 
 done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up 
 and laughed lightly. " At any rate," suggested 
 he, " let's forget the cruelty now and take 
 the fun. Three of them are safe and 
 very likely this scrap," and he touched the 
 dead bird in her hand, "is flying to rejoin his 
 brothers in hunting-grounds that are stocked 
 with angle-worms, and such game. We are to 
 have a good time to-day, you and I." 
 
84 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 At this moment Eric rushed up. a Say, 
 Mann," he cried; " here they come. They have 
 taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And 
 Miss Hopkins looks perfectly in a white veil. 
 And oh ! here are the rest of our own party." 
 
 Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of 
 the street, but they did not fall to the level of 
 the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped by 
 something above. At a high, fourth-story 
 window, beyond the circle of flying fun and 
 frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a wonder- 
 ful woman's face, a face with great dark eyes and 
 raven hair. A heavily-figured white lace veil 
 was pulled low over her brow, and fell in folds 
 against her cheeks. Her skin was white, the 
 scarlet of her face concentrating in her lips. 
 
 There was a strange consonance between the 
 creamy heavy lace and its flowing intertwined 
 figures, and the free it encircled. A mystery, a 
 grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a 
 vivid dream, in its combination of clearness and 
 unreality. There was life, with smothered pas- 
 sion and pride and pain in it, Mae was sure. 
 So near to her that her voice could have 
 arched the little distance easily, and yet so far 
 away from her life and all that touched it. 
 
 A gentleman attending the lady whispered 
 
MAE MADDEN. 85 
 
 to her. She bent her eyes on Mae, and met her 
 glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously 
 back. 
 
 Mae had been looking for Bero all that after- 
 noon. She felt sure he would be there, and 
 very soon she saw him among a crowd of offi- 
 cers sauntering slowly down the Corso. He 
 looked up at the window opposite. The veiled 
 lady leaned slightly forward and bowed and 
 waved her white hand. Bero bowed. So did 
 the other officers. 
 
 Norman Mann and Eric excused themselves 
 long enough to dash over to welcome their 
 friends and then stayed on for a little chat. 
 These young women were quite gorgeous in 
 opera cloaks and tiny, nearly invisible, Ameri- 
 can flags tucked through their belts. They 
 tossed confetti down on every one's heads, and 
 shouted a little over-enthusiastically, but one 
 can pardon even gush if it is only genuine. 
 That was the question in this case. 
 
 The horse race came; and Mae went fairly 
 wild. When it was over, every body prepared 
 to go home. King Pasquino had virtually 
 abdicated in favor of the Dinner Kings. Mae 
 unclasped her tightly strained hands, clambered 
 down from a chair she had perched herself on, 
 
MADDEN. 
 
 smiled a good-bye at the veiled lady, and came 
 away. She rode home quietty with a big bou- 
 quet of exquisite blue violets in her hand. 
 There was a rose on top and a fringe of maid- 
 en's hair at the edge, and the bouquet was 
 flung from Bero's own hand up at the side win- 
 dow on the quiet Jesu e Maria, when every- 
 one else but Mae was out on the Corso balcony. 
 
 " It is dreadful to grow old," said Mae, break- 
 ing silence, as the carriage clattered over the 
 stony streets. 
 
 " My dear," expostulated Edith, " you surely 
 don't call yourself old. What do you mean?" 
 
 u I fancied I could take the Carnival as a 
 child takes a big bonbon and just think 
 with a smack of the lips, 4 My! how good this 
 is.' But here I am, wondering what my candy 
 is made of all the time, and forgetting, except 
 at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to 
 separate false from true, and gold from gilt. 
 Still, what is the use of this stuff now! I'll 
 remember that horse race, for there I did for- 
 get myself and everything but motion. How 
 I would like to be a horse!" And the volatile 
 Mae seized the stems of her bouquet for whip 
 and bridle and gave a little inelegant expres- 
 sive click-click to her lips as if she were spur- 
 ring that imaginary steed herself. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 87 
 
 Norman smiled. u We can't keep children 
 for ever, even 
 
 " The silliest of us?" 
 
 " Even the freshest and blithest." 
 
 u 0, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday- 
 school book," said Mae; u don't be goody- 
 goody to-night." 
 
 u What bad thing shall I do to please your 
 majesty, my lady Pasquino?" 
 
 " Waltz," said Mae. So, after dinner, Edith 
 and Eric sang, and Norman and Mae took to 
 the poetry of motion as ducks take to water, 
 and outdanced the singers. 
 
 u Thank you," said Mae, smiling up at him. 
 " This has done me good." She pushed the 
 brown hair back from her forehead and drew 
 some deep breaths and leaned back in her 
 chair, still tapping her eager, half-tired foot 
 against the floor, while Norman fanned her 
 with his handkerchief. 
 
 This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady 
 and Miss Hopkins and every other confusing 
 thought floated off. and left them quite happy 
 for well say for ten minutes. 
 
 And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is 
 worth waiting for, old and cynical people say. 
 
88 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 The next morning brought back all her 
 troubles, with variations and complications, on 
 account of some more misunderstood words. 
 
 " I think, 1 ' said Mae, as she paused to blot the 
 tenth page of a home letter, u that likes and dis- 
 likes are very similar, don't you, Edith?" Then, 
 as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw 
 that her friend's chair was occupied by Norman 
 Mann. He looked up also and smiled. 
 
 u I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested 
 in your theory all the same. Only, as I am a 
 man, I shall require you to show up your 
 reasons." 
 
 " Well, 1 find that people who affect me very 
 intensely either way, I always feel intuitively 
 acquainted with. I know what they will think 
 and how they will act under given conditions, 
 and I believe we are driven into friendship or 
 strong dislikes more by the force of circums- 
 tances than by " 
 
 u Elective affinities or any of that nonsense," 
 suggested Norman Mann. 
 
 " -Yes," said Mae, nodding her head, and re- 
 peating her original statement under another 
 form, as a sort of conclusion and proof to the 
 conversation. u Yes, a natural acquaintance 
 may develope into your best friend or your worst 
 
MAE MADDEN. 89 
 
 foe." She started on page number eleven of 
 her letter, dipping her pen deep into the ink- 
 stand and giving such a particular flourish to 
 her right arm, as to nearly upset the bouquet 
 of flowers at her side. It was Bero's gift. Nor- 
 man Mann put out his hand to save it. His 
 fingers fell in among the soft flowers and 
 touched something stiff. It felt like a little 
 roll of paper. Indignantly and surprisedly he 
 pulled it out. " What is this?" he cried. 
 
 Mae sprang forward, her cheeks aflame. " It 
 is mine," she said. 
 
 u Did you put it here?" asked Norman. 
 
 a No." 
 
 " Then how do you know it is yours ? Is not 
 this a carnival bouquet, idly tossed from the 
 street to the balcony?" 
 
 Mae straightened to her utmost height 
 which wasn't lofty then and said hastily : 
 " Mr. Mann, this is utterly absurd, and more. I 
 am not a child, and if I catch an idly flung 
 bouquet that holds idle secrets, I surely have a 
 right to them." She laughed hurriedly. 
 " Come, give me my note, some Italian babble, 
 I dare say." 
 
 Norman looked at her for a minute with 
 a struggle in his heart and a flash of half 
 
90 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 scorn, Mae thought, on his face. What was he 
 thinking? 
 
 That the child was in danger. He had no 
 doubt in his own mind now that the flowers 
 and the note came from Bero and that Mae 
 knew it. He held the paper crushed in his 
 hand, while he looked at her. 
 
 " I presume you will never forgive me," he 
 said, u but I must warn you, not as a mentor 
 or even as a friend," noticing her annoyed air, 
 u but as one soul is bound to warn another soul, 
 seeing it in danger. Take care of yourself, and 
 there!" And taking the crushed note between his 
 two hands, h'e deliberately tore it asunder and 
 threw the halves on the table before her. 
 
 u And there, and there, and there!" cried 
 Mae, tearing the fragments impetuously, and 
 scattering the sudden little snow flakes before 
 him. Then, with a look of supreme contempt, 
 she left the room. 
 
 Norman looked down on the whita heap that 
 lay peacefully at his feet. U I am a fool," he 
 thought. 
 
 " Little Mae Madden, little Mae Madden, I 
 am so sorry for you," repeated that excited bit 
 of womankind to herself in the silence of her 
 own room. u What won't they drive you to 
 
MAE MADDEN. 91 
 
 yet? How dreadful they think you are? And 
 only last night we thought things were all 
 coming around beautifully! 1 ' 
 
 And she looked at herself pityingly in the 
 glass. A mirror is a dangerous thing for a 
 woman who has come to pity herself. She sees 
 the possibilities of her face too clearly. And 
 Mae, looking into the mirror then, realized to 
 an extent she never had before, that her eyes 
 and mouth might be powerful friends to her- 
 self and foes to Norman Mann, if she so de- 
 sired. And to-day she did so desire, and went 
 down to the Carnival with as reckless and 
 dangerous a spirit as good King Pasquino 
 could have asked. 
 
 The details of this day were very like those 
 of the last. Norman and Eric vibrated be- 
 tween the Madden and Hopkins balconies; the 
 crowd was great; confetti and flowers filled the 
 air; and up above it all, circled by her crown of 
 misty, heavy lace-work, shone out the beauti- 
 ful, wonderful face of the strange lady. She 
 dropped smiles from under her long black 
 lashes and from the corners of the rare, sweet 
 mouth over the heads of the idlers to Mae, who 
 looked up to catch them. There was a resting, 
 almost saving influence, Mae's excited sou] 
 6 
 
92 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 believed, in the strange face; and her eyes 
 sought it constantly. She had been quite ob- 
 livious to the friends about this beautiful 
 stranger, but once, as her eyes sought the Ital- 
 ian's, she saw her arise with a sudden flash of 
 light on her face, and hold out a white hand. 
 A head bent over it, and as it lifted itself 
 slowly, Mae saw once more the well-known 
 features of the Signor Bero. 
 
 She looked down toward the street quickly 
 and a sharp pain filled her heart. 
 
 She had lost her only friend in Rome, so the 
 silly girl said to herself. If he knew that won- 
 derful woman, and if she flashed those weary, 
 great eyes for him, how could he see or think 
 of any other ? Moreover, it was very vexa- 
 tious to have him there. If she smiled up at 
 the girl, Bero might think she was watching 
 him, trying to attract his notice. So Mae ap- 
 peared very careless and played she did not see 
 him at all, at all. Yet she could not resist 
 looking up now and then for one of the rare 
 smiles. Tney seemed like very far between 
 "nows and theus " to Mae, averaging possibly a 
 distance of four minutes apart. But that is as 
 one counts time by steady clock-ticks, and not 
 by heart-beats. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 93 
 
 Meanwhile, what could she do with her 
 eyes? They would wander once in a while 
 over to the opposite balcony, at just such mo- 
 ments as when Norman Mann was picking up 
 Miss Rae's fan and receiving her thanks for 
 it from under her drooped eyelids, or choosing 
 a flower for himself, u the very, very prettiest, 
 Mr. Mann, 1 ' before she threw the rest to the 
 winds and the passing gallants. 
 
 As Mae grew reckless her eyes grew bright. 
 There were few passers-by who were not at- 
 tracted by the flash of those eyes. The sailor 
 lads, as they trundled past in their ship on 
 wheels, left the barrels of lime from which they 
 had been pelting the pleasure-seekers to throw 
 whole handfuls of flowers up to the Jesu e 
 Maria balcony; a set of hale young English- 
 men picked out their prettiest bonbons for the 
 same purpose; and one elderly, pompous man, 
 who drove unmasked and with staring opera 
 glasses up and down the Corso, quite showered 
 her with bouquets, which he threw so poorly, 
 and with such a shaky old hand, that the street 
 gamins caught them all except such as he craft- 
 ily flung so that they might assuredly tumble 
 back to the carriage again. And Mae, though 
 she had felt the pleased gaze of a good many 
 
94 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 eyes before, had never quite put its meaning 
 plainly to herself. She was apt, on such oc- 
 casions, to feel high-spirited, excited, joyous, 
 but now she realized well that she was being 
 admired, and she led on for victory ardently. 
 
 She tossed back little sprays of flowers, or 
 quiet bonbons, or now and then mischievously 
 let drop a sprinkling of confetti balls through 
 her half-closed fingers. To do this she drooped 
 her hand low over among the balcony trim- 
 mings, following the soft shower with her 
 eyes, as some straight soldier would wipe the 
 tiny minie balls from his face and glance up to 
 see where they came from. If he looked up once, 
 he never failed to look again, and generally 
 darted around the nearest corner to return with 
 his offering, in the shape of flowers or other 
 pretty carnival nonsense. Mae rather satisfied 
 her conscience, which was tolerably fast asleep 
 for the time being, at any rate, with the fact 
 that she didn't smile at these strangers she 
 only looked! 
 
 Her pleasure wss heightened by the knowl- 
 edge that she was watched. If she glanced 
 across quickly, Miss Rae's eyes were invariably 
 fixed on her and Norman Mann would be gaz- 
 ing in the opposite direction in the most sus- 
 
MAE MADDEN. 95 
 
 picious manner. From above her strange friend 
 leaned over admiringly and once, as Mae looked 
 joyously upwards, clapped her white hands 
 softly together, while beyond her a tall figure 
 stood motionless. Mae had pretended not to 
 see Bero yet, but as the Italian applauded her 
 in this gentle manner, her eyes sought his in- 
 voluntarily. He was gazing very fixedly and 
 rapturously down on her, without any apparent 
 thought of the beautiful girl by his side. After 
 that, Mae looked up often, in a glad, childlike 
 way, for spite of this first lesson in wholesale 
 coquetry, and the new conflict of emotions 
 within her mind, she was enjoying herself with 
 the utter abandon of her glad nature. 
 
 Toward the close of the afternoon, the Ital- 
 ian was suddenly surrounded by a great mass 
 of flowers, over which she waved her hand ca- 
 ressingly and pointed down at Mae. a For 
 you, 11 the gesture seemed to say. The veiled 
 lady appeared to summon several of her friends, 
 for a number of gentlemen left the other win- 
 dow and its group of girls, and began the diffi- 
 cult task of attempting to toss the bouquets from 
 their height down to Mae. This was rendered 
 the more difficult as the Madden balcony was 
 covered, and the best shots succeeded in land- 
 
96 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ing their trophies on this awning, where they 
 were speedily captured and drawn in by the 
 occupants of the next flat, an ogre of an old 
 woman and her hook-nosed daughter, who wore 
 an ugly green dress and was otherwise unat- 
 tractive. 
 
 The entire Madden party became interested 
 and stood looking on with the most encourag- 
 ing smiles. The very last bouquet was vainly 
 thrown, however, and gathered in by the ogre, 
 when Bero suddenly appeared, a little behind 
 the party in the window. The flowers in his 
 hand were of the same specimens as those he 
 had given Mae the day before, although dif- 
 ferent in arrangement. He lifted the bouquet 
 quickly to his lips, so quickly that perhaps only 
 Mae understood the motion, and flung it light- 
 ly forward. Mae leaned over the balcony, 
 reaching out her eager hands, and caught it in 
 her very finger tips. The party above bowed 
 and applauded, as she raised the flowers tri- 
 umphantly to her face. 
 
 So the second day of the Carnival was a suc- 
 cess, till they turned their backs on the Corso. 
 In the carriage Mrs. Jerrold spoke gently but 
 firmly to Mae. " Be a little more careful, dear; 
 don't let your spirits carry you quite away 
 
MAE MADDEN. 97 
 
 during these mad days." Mae smiled, but was 
 silent. 
 
 " What a strangely beautiful girl that was in 
 the gallery opposite, 11 Edith, said, a moment la- 
 ter. " I wonder if she is engaged to that su- 
 perb man ; I fancied I had seen him before. 
 Why, Mae, what in the world are you blushing 
 at ? 11 For Mae's face was scarlet. u Why, no- 
 thing, 1 ' replied Mae, redder yet ; " nothing at 
 all. What do you mean ? " 
 
 The same thought occurred to Edith and 
 Albert. The officer was Mae's chance acquaint- 
 ance. They both looked grave, and Albert re- 
 marked : " It is as well to be careful before get- 
 ting up too sudden an acquaintance with your 
 Italian girl. Take care of your eyes." 
 
 u Has it come to this ? " cried Mae, half jest- 
 ingly, half bitterly. "Are not my very eyes my 
 own ? I shall feel, Albert, as if you were try- 
 ing to bind me in that chain you threatened," 
 and Mae started : her fingers had felt another 
 scrap of paper among the flowers, but she did 
 not drop it from the carriage, as her first im- 
 pulse was; she held it tight and close in her 
 warm right hand until she was fairly at home 
 and safe in her own room. Then she opened 
 and read in an Italian hand, " To my little 
 Queen of the Carnival." 
 
98 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Could lie have written that as he stood by 
 the wonderful veiled lady, with her white mys- 
 terious beauty, with the purple shadows about 
 her dark eyes, while she and Mae looked in 
 her glass again. What did she see ? Certainly 
 a different picture, but a picture for all that. 
 Life and color and youth, a-tremble and a-quiver 
 in every quick movement of her face, in the 
 sudden lifting of the eyelids, the swift turn of 
 the lips, the litheness and carelessness of every 
 motion; above and beyond all, the picture pos- 
 sessed that rare quality which some artist has 
 declared to be the highest beauty, that pictur- 
 esque charm which shines from within, that 
 magnetic flash and quiver which comes and 
 goes " ere one can say it lightens." 
 
 The veiled lady's face was stranger, more 
 mysterious, to an artistic or an imaginative 
 mind; but youth, and intense life, and end- 
 less variety usually carry the day with a man's 
 captious heart, and so Bero called Mae 
 " My little Queen of the Carnival." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AE'S good times were greatly dimmed 
 after this by the thought that she 
 was watched. The bouquets which 
 came daily from Bero troubled her 
 also not a little. They were invariably formed 
 of the same flowers, and might easily attract 
 Edith's attention and possible suspicion. So she 
 stayed home from the Corso one day not long 
 after, when she was in a particularly Corso-Car- 
 nival mood. She wandered helplessly about, 
 restless and full of desire to be down at the 
 balcony with the rest. And such a strange 
 thing is the human heart, that it was Norman 
 Mann's face she saw before her constantly, 
 and she found Miss Rae's little twinkling sort 
 of eyes far more haunting than those of her 
 veiled friend. 
 
 The rich life in Mae's blood was surging in 
 her veins and must be let off in some way. If 
 she had had her music and a piano she might 
 have thrown her soul into some great flood- 
 waves of harmony. The Farnesina frescoes 
 of Cupid and Psyche over across the Tiber 
 
100 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 would have helped her, but here she was alone, 
 and so she did what so many " fervent souls " 
 do scribbled her heart out in a colorful, bar- 
 barous rhyme. Mae had ordinarily too good 
 sense for this, too deep a reverence for that 
 world of poetry, at the threshold of which one 
 should bow the knee, and loose the shoe from his 
 foot, and tread softly. She didn't care for this 
 to-day. She plunged boldly in, wrote her verse, 
 copied it, sent it to a Roman English paper, 
 and heard from it again two days later, in the 
 following way. 
 
 The entire party were breakfasting together, 
 when Albert suddenly looked up from his paper 
 and laughed. " Look here," he cried. u Here is 
 another of those dreadful imitators of the 
 Pre-Raphaelite school. Hear this from a so- 
 called poem in the morning's journal: 
 * The gorgeous brown reds 
 Of the fall-throated creatures of song.' " 
 
 " I don't see anything bad in that," said Eric, 
 helping himself to another muffin. " What is 
 the matter with you? " 
 
 " Matter enough," returned Albert. ;t Be- 
 cause their masters, sometimes, daub on colors 
 with their full palettes and strong brushes, this 
 feeble herd tag after them and flounder around 
 
MAE MADDEN. 101 
 
 in color and passion in a way that is sickening." 
 u Go on," shouted Eric, u he is our own 
 brother, Mae, after all, you see. Fancy my 
 Lord Utilitarian turning to break a lance in 
 defence of beauty. Edith, you and the picture- 
 galleries are to blame for this." 
 
 Mae had been paying great attention to her 
 rolls and coffee, and very little apparently to the 
 conversation, but she spoke eagerly now. 
 " Their masters do not daub. They do hold 
 palettes full of the strongest, richest colors, 
 and dare lay them, in vivid flecks, on their can- 
 vas. They do not care if they may offend 
 some modern cultivated eyes, used only to the 
 invisible blues and shadowy greens and that 
 host of cold, lifeless, toneless grays, of refined 
 conventional art. They know well enough that 
 their satisfying reds and browns and golds of 
 rich, free nature will go to the beating hearts 
 of some of us." 
 
 Mae had a way of dashing into conversation 
 abruptly, and the Madden family had been 
 brought up on argument and table-talk. So 
 the rest of the party ate their breakfast placid- 
 ly enough. " Mae's right," said Eric, a trifle 
 grandly, " only, to change the figure of speech 
 for one better fitted for the occasion, they 
 
102 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 may satiate, though they never starve you. But 
 they are wonderfully fine, sometimes. 0, 
 bother, I never can quote, but there is some- 
 thing about ' I will go back to the great sweet 
 mother. 11 ' 
 
 u Or this, 11 suggested Mae, 
 
 " ' And to me thou art matchless and fair 
 As the tawny sweet twilight, with blended 
 . Sunlight and red stars in her hair.' " 
 
 u 1 love my masters, 11 continued this young 
 enthusiast, u because they fling all rules aside, 
 and cry out as they choose. It is their very 
 heart's blood and the lusty wine of life that 
 they give you, not just a scrap of l rosemary 
 for remembrance, 1 and a soothing herb-tea 
 made from the flowers of fancy they have culled 
 from those much travestied, abominable fields of 
 thought. 11 
 
 " And this from a lover of Wordsworth, who 
 holds the ' Daffodils 1 and c Lucy 7 as her chief jew- 
 els, and quotes the 'Immortality 1 perpetually! " 
 cried Eric. " If any body ever wandered up 
 and down those same fields of thought, by 
 more intricate, labyrinthine passages and by- 
 ways, I'd like to know of him. Talk about 
 soothing herbs, bless me, it's hot catnip-tea, 
 good and strong, that he serves up in half 5f 
 his strings about 11 
 
MAE MADDEN. 103 
 
 " 0, Eric, hush," cried Mae, u I am afraid for 
 you with such words on your lips. Think of 
 Ananias." 
 
 " Before you children go wandering off on 
 one of your poet fights," broke in Albert, " let 
 me take you to task, Mae, for stealing; that 
 lusty wine you talked of just now is in the 
 poem (?) I holddn my hand." 
 
 u t)o read it to us," said Edith, "and let us 
 judge for ourselves." So Albert began: 
 
 ALL OK A SUMMER'S DAY. 
 
 " Far away the mountains rise, purpling and joyous, 
 Through the half mist of the warm pulsing day, while 
 nigh 
 
 At hand gay birds hang swinging and floating 
 And waving betwixt earth and sky, 
 
 Ringing out from ripe throats 
 
 A sensuous trickling a of notes, 
 That fall through the trees, 
 Till caught by the soft-rocking breeze 
 
 They are borne to the ears of the maiden. 
 
 Her eyes wander after the sound, 
 And glimpses she catches along 
 
 Through green broad-leaved shadows, 
 Through sunbeams gold-strong, 
 
 Of the gorgeous brown reds of the full-throated crea- 
 tures of song. 
 
 One hand on her brown bosom rests, 
 
104 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Rising and falling with every heart-beat 
 Of the delicate, slow-swelling breasts. 
 
 A lily, proud, all color of amber and wine, 
 Waves peerless there, by right divine 
 Queen o'er the moment and place. 
 As the wind bends her coaxingly, 
 Brushes softly the maiden's white hand- 
 That falls with an idle grace, 
 Listlessly closed at her side 
 With a rippling touch, such as the tide, 
 Rising, leaves on a summer day, 
 On the quiet shore of some peaceful bay. 
 
 There she stands in the heavily-bladed grass, 
 
 Under the trumpet-vine, 
 Drinking long, deep, intoxicate draughts 
 
 Of Nature's lusty, live wine. 
 There he sees her as he approaches ; 
 
 Then pauses, as full on his ear 
 
 There swells, on a sudden, loud and clear, 
 A wonderful burst of song. 
 
 A mad delicious glory; a rainbow rhythm of life, 
 Strong and young and free, a burst of the senses all 
 
 astrife, 
 
 Each one fighting to be first, 
 While above, beyond them all, 
 Loud a woman's heart makes call." 
 
 "Now, fire ahead,' 1 said Eric, "get your 
 stones ready. Mrs. Jerrold, pray begin; let us 
 put down this young parrot with her ; lusty, 
 live wine.' ' 
 
HAE MADDEN. 105 
 
 u Her? 1 ' exclaimed Edith, a Him, you mean." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ; a woman wrote that, 
 didn't she?" 
 
 Eric was very confident. Norman agreed 
 with him, and he glanced at Mae to discover 
 her opinion. There was a look of secret amuse- 
 ment in her face, and a dim suspicion entered 
 his mind, which decided him to watch her 
 closely. 
 
 " Well,': said Mrs. Jerrold, " I will be lenient. 
 You children may throw all the stones. It is 
 not poetry to my taste. There's no metre to it, 
 and I should certainly be sorry to think a 
 woman wrote it." 
 
 "Why?" asked Mae, quickly, almost com- 
 mandingly. Norman glanced at her. There 
 was a tiny rosebud on each cheek. 
 
 " Because," replied Mrs. Jerrold, " it is too 
 too what, Edith?" 
 
 " Physical, perhaps," suggested Edith. 
 
 u lt is a satyr-like sort of writing," suggested 
 Norman. 
 
 " I should advise this person," said Edith 
 
 "To keep still? " interrupted Eric. 
 
 " No, to go to work; tha't is what he or she 
 needs." 
 
 u That is odd advice," said Mae ; " sup- 
 
106 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 pose she or he is young, doesn't know what to 
 do, is a traveler, like ourselves, for instance." 
 
 " There are plenty of benevolent schemes in 
 Rome, I am sure," said Edith, a trifle sancti- 
 moniously. 
 
 8t And there's study," said Albert, " art or 
 history. Think what a chance for study- 
 ing them one has here. Yes, Edith is right- 
 work or study, and a general shutting up of the 
 fancy is what this mind needs." 
 
 " I disagree with you entirely," said Norman 
 with energy. u She needs play, relaxation, free- 
 dom." Then he was sorry he had said it; Mae's 
 eyes sparkled so. 
 
 u She needs," said Eric, pushing back his 
 chair, " to be married. She is in love. That's 
 what's the matter. Read those two last lines, 
 Albert: 
 
 ' While above, beyond them all, 
 Loud a woman's heart makes call.' 
 
 "Dom'tyousee?" 
 
 " 0, wise young man," laughed Edith. But 
 Mae arose. The scarlet buds in her cheeks 
 flamed into full-blown roses. u There speaks 
 the man," she cried passionately, "and pray 
 doesn't a woman's heart ever call for anything 
 but love aren't life and liberty more than all 
 
MAE MADDEN. 107 
 
 the love in the world? Oh!" and she stopped 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Well, we have wasted more time than is 
 worth while over this young, wild gosling," 
 laughed Albert. "Let us hope she will take 
 our advice." 
 
 Mae shook her head involuntarily. There 
 was a smile on Norman Mann's lips. 
 
 "Here's health and happiness to the poor 
 child at any rate," he said. 
 
 " He pities me," thought Mae, " and 1 hate 
 him." But then she didn't at all. 
 
 Mae wandered off to the kitchen, as usual, 
 that day, for another of Lisetta's stories. The 
 Italian, with her glibness of tongue and ready 
 fund of anecdote, was transformed in her im- 
 aginative mind into a veritable improvisatore. 
 Talila was not by any means the only heroine of 
 the little tales. Mae had made the acquaint- 
 ance of many youths and maidens, and to-day 
 Lisetta, after thinking over her list of impor- 
 tant personages, chose the Madre Ilkana as the 
 heroine of the occasion. Mae had already 
 heard one or two amusing incidents connected 
 with this old mother. " I am sure she has a 
 cousin in America," she asserted to-day, before 
 Lisetta began, " for I know her well. She 
 7 
 
108 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 knits all the time, and is as bony as a ledge of 
 rocks, and her eyes are as sharp as her knitting- 
 needles, and her words are the sharpest of all. 
 Her name is Miss Mary Ann Rogers. Is she 
 like the Madre Ilkana?" 
 
 Lisetta shook her head. u No, no, Signorina, 
 La Madre is as plump and round as a loaf of 
 bread, and as soft as the butter on it. She has 
 five double chins that she shakes all the while, 
 but then she has stiff, bristles, like a man's, 
 growing on them, and her knitting-needles and 
 her words are all sharp as la Signora Maria 
 Anne R-o-o-g-eers, I doubt not. But her eyes! 
 Why, Signorina, she has the evil eye!" This 
 Lisetta said in a whisper, while Giovanni 
 . shrugged his shoulders bravely, arid little Ro- 
 berto cuddled closer to Mae. 
 
 "Yes," continued Lisetta, "and so no one 
 knows exactly about her eyes, not daring to 
 look directly into them, bat as nearly as I can 
 make out they are black, and have a soft veil 
 over them, so that you would think at first they 
 were just about to cry, when suddenly, fires 
 creep up and burn out the drops, and leave her 
 hot and angry and scorching. 
 
 " She must be terrible," cried Mae, with a 
 sudden shrinking. 
 
MAE MADDEN 1 . 109 
 
 u She is terrible," replied Lisetta, u but then 
 she is very clever. You will see if she is not 
 clever when you hear the story I shall now tell 
 you," and Lisetta laughed, and showed her own 
 one double chin, with its two little round 
 dimples. Then she smoothed down her peasant 
 apron, bade Giovanni leave off pinching Ro- 
 berto, and commenced. 
 
 u The government hates the banditti," began 
 Lisetta, wisely, " and indeed it should," and she 
 looked gravely at Giovanni, u for they are very 
 wild men, who live reckless, bad lives, and steal, 
 and are quite dreadful. But we poor, we do not 
 hate them as the government does, because they 
 are good to us, and do not war with us, and 
 sometimes those we love join them a brother 
 or a cousin, perhaps" and LisettaV black eyes 
 filled, and her lip quivered. u As for the 
 Madre, she loved them all, and said they were 
 all relations. 
 
 "At this time of which I speak, the soldiers 
 were chasing and hunting the banditti very 
 hard, and they had been compelled to hide for 
 their lives up among the mountains. There 
 they would have died, had it not been for the 
 peasants, who supplied them with food. Small 
 parties of the bandits would come out for it. 
 
110 MAS MADDEN. 
 
 There were two very powerful men of the 
 banditti, who were skirmishing*about in this 
 way, not far from the Madre Ilkana's, when 
 they saw two soldiers, in advance of their 
 company, approaching-' them. The banditti 
 were not afraid for themselves, but they wanted 
 to get back to their friends with the bread and 
 meat, so instead of fighting, they fled to the 
 Madre. She took them in, and bade them be 
 sure they were safe with her. But the soldiers 
 had caught sight of them, and they stopped at 
 every house and enquired anJ searched for 
 them; and so, soon they came to the Madre II- 
 kana's. They charged her in the name of the 
 government to give up the banditti in her 
 house. The Madre kept on with her knitting, 
 and told them there were only her two sons in 
 the house, and mothers never gave up their 
 sons to any one. 
 
 " l Ha!' laughed one of the soldiers, l mothers 
 must give up their children to King Death, and 
 it is He who wants your bad boys.' Upon 
 which, the Madre arose and cursed them. 
 Curses are common with us, Signorina, but not 
 La Madre's curses. She talked of their mothers 
 to them, and of their sons, and of the Holy Vir- 
 gin and child, and she cursed them in the name 
 
MAE MADDEN. HI 
 
 of all these, if they dared steal her children 
 from her. They should take them over her 
 old dead body, she swore, though her knitting- 
 needles and her eyes were her only weapons, 
 and then she turned her eyes full upon them, 
 with the evil spirit leering and laughing out of 
 them, and the soldiers, one of whom was an 
 officer, fell on their knees and shook like leaves, 
 and prayed her to forgive them; saying that they 
 were sure her boys were good sons, and no ban- 
 ditti. And while they knelt crouching there, La 
 Madre knocked on the floor and in rushed the 
 banditti, armed with great knives. They caught 
 and bound the two soldiers, and took away their 
 weapons, and jumped on their horses, and fled. 
 " La Madre took her knitting again, and sat 
 down quietly by the side of the bound men, un- 
 til a half hour later some twelve more soldiers 
 cantered up. As they rode by, all the people 
 came to their doorways, and the soldiers stop- 
 ped and asked if they had seen two horsemen. 
 Then La Madre gathered up her knitting and 
 went quietly out into the crowd. She made a 
 low bow to the man with the biggest feather in 
 his cap, and she told him her story. ' I have 
 two sons,' she said, ' whom I love so well.' 
 Then she told how the soldiers mistook her 
 
112 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 sons for banditti, and tried to take them from 
 her in her own house. ; Though I am old, I 
 have a good life among my friends and neigh- 
 bors here, and. I fought a while in my own mind 
 before I said to my sons: Go, my boys, your 
 mother will die for you. But I did it. I bade 
 them bind the soldiers and steal away. Then 
 I sat guarding the men till you came. You 
 will find them safe in my little house there; 
 Now, take me to prison kill me, but look in 
 my eyes first, and then, whoever lays a hand on 
 ine, take La Madre Ilkana's curse. 1 
 
 u And the people all swore that there were two 
 snakes coiled up in La Madre's eyes then, and 
 they hissed, and struck out with their fiery 
 tongues, and the crowd fell on their knees, and 
 the neighbors all set up a great shout of fc La 
 Madre Ilkana,' so that they quite drowned the 
 voice of the man with the big feather. 11 
 
 "Is that all? 11 asked Mae, as Lisetta paused. 
 " What did the soldiers do? 11 
 
 " 0, they hired a passing carriage to take the 
 men whose horses were stolen back to Castel- 
 lamare, and they all cantered off, without say- 
 ing a word to La Madre, and when they had 
 turned a corner of the road, she began to laugh. 
 ? how she laughed! All the people laughed 
 
MAE MADDEN. / H3 
 
 with her, and the children crowed and the dogs 
 barked, for the rest of that whole day. 
 
 " And a neighbor who passed La Madre's at 
 midnight, said she was laughing oat loud then." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ]IGNORINA." Mae was passing down 
 the long hall when she heard the 
 whisper. She turned and saw Lisetta, 
 with shining eyes and pink cheeks, 
 standing at her side. Her pretty plump shoul- 
 ders were only half covered, and the array of 
 colors about her transformed her into a sort of 
 personified rainbow. This was Lisetta's Car- 
 nival attire, and very proud she was of it. 
 
 " Why, Lisetta, what do you want, and what 
 makes you so happy? " called Mae. 
 
 " 0, Signorina, the cousins are here, and 
 others, all in mask. They fill Maria's rooms 
 quite full. It is very gay out there, and they 
 all want to see you, Signorina. I have told 
 them how well you speak Italian and how you 
 love Italy, and to-night, they say, you shall be 
 one of us. So come. 1 ' All this while Lisetta 
 had been leading Mae swiftly down the corri- 
 dor, until as she said these last words, she 
 reached and pushed open the door. A great 
 shout of laughter greeted Mae's ear, and a 
 pretty picture met her eyes gaily decked 
 
MAE MADDEN. H5 
 
 youths and maidens clapping their hands and 
 chattering brightly, while the padrona was just 
 entering the opposite doorway, bearing two 
 flasks of native wine, and some glasses. 
 
 " "Tis genuine Orvieto," she called out, and 
 this raised another shout. Then she caught 
 sight of Mae and bowed low towards her. 
 u Here is the little foreign lady," she cried, and 
 a dozen pairs of big black eyes were turned 
 eagerly and warmly on Mae. She bowed and 
 smiled at them, and said in pleading tones, 
 u 0, pray do not call me the l little foreign 
 lady ' now. Play I am as good an Italian as 
 my heart could wish I were." 
 
 This speech was received with new applause, 
 and the padrona handed around the glasses say- 
 ing: u We must drink first to the health of 
 our new Italian. May she never leave us." 
 
 " Yes, yes," called Lisetta, lifting high her 
 glass. u Yes, yes," cried all, and Mae drank as 
 heartily as any of them. Then she shook her 
 head and gazed very scornfully down on her 
 dark, stylish clothes. " I am not thoroughly 
 Italian yet," she cried. " Here, and here, and 
 here," cried one and another, proffering bits of 
 their own gay costumes, and in a moment Mae 
 bad received all sorts of tributes a string of 
 
116 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 red beads from one, a long sash from another, 
 a big-balled stiletto from a third, so that she 
 was able from the gleanings to trim herself up 
 into at least a grotesque and un-American Car- 
 nival figure. Then the Italians with their soft 
 tongues began to flatter her. 
 
 " How lovely the Signorina would look in a 
 contadina costume the home costume," said 
 Lisetta gravely. u It is so beautiful, is it not? " 
 And then those two or three privileged ones, 
 who had seen Lisetta's home, went into ecsta- 
 sies over its many charms. Lisetta, next to 
 the Signorina, was the heroine of the occasion. 
 She was from a distance, was handsome and 
 clever, and the padrona gave glowing accounts 
 of her full purse, and two pretty donkeys, and 
 house by the sea. 
 
 They had a very gay time. Such singing, 
 and then dancing and frolicking, and such a 
 feline softness in all their gaiety. None of the 
 German or Saxon bullying, and barking and 
 showing of teeth; in no wise a game of dogs, 
 which always ends in a fight ; but a truly kitten- 
 ish play, with sharp claws safely tucked out of 
 sight behind the very softest paws, and a rich, 
 gentle curve of motion, inexpressibly witching 
 to our little northern maiden, who was fast 
 
MAE MADDEN. 117 
 
 losing her head amid it all. Mae did not reflect 
 that felines are treacfierous. She only drew a 
 quick, mental picture of the 'parlor on the other 
 side of the hall, which she compared to this 
 gay scene. Mrs. Jerrold filling in dull row 
 after row of her elaborate sofa cushion, which 
 was bought in all its gorgeousness of floss fawn's 
 head and bead eyes, Edith and Albert hard at 
 work over their note books, or reading up for 
 the sights of to-morrow, Mr. Mann with his 
 open book also, all quiet and studious. Eric, 
 alone, might be softly whistling, or writing an 
 invitation to Miss Hopkins to climb up St. 
 Peter's dome with him, or to -visit the tomb of 
 Cecilia Metella, or the Corso, as the case might 
 be, while here 
 
 As Mae reached this point in her musings, 
 the Italians were forming for a dance, so she 
 sprang up to join them. Two or three peas- 
 ants from the country south had wandered up 
 with the world to Rome, for Carnival time, 
 then for Lent. They had brought with them 
 their pipes and zitterns. In the mornings they 
 made shprt pilgrimages, playing in front of 
 the shrines about the city, or roaming out on 
 the campagna to some quiet church. In the 
 evening time they wandered up the stone stair- 
 
118 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ways of the great houses, and paused on the 
 landings before the different homes. If all 
 was still they passed on, but if there was noise, 
 laughter, sound of voices, they laid aside their 
 penitential manner, and struck into dance 
 music, flashing their velvety eyes, and striking 
 pretty attitudes, aided greatly by their Alpine 
 hats and sheep-skins and scarlet-banded 
 stockings. 
 
 Three of these peasants had appeared at the 
 padrona's doorway, by a sort of magic. They 
 bowed and smiled, and commenced to play. 
 Every one sprang up. u Dance," cried they 
 all, and flew for their partners. Mae found her- 
 self in the midst of the crowd, and having the 
 most willing and nimble of feet, she soon toned 
 and coaxed the fashionable waltz on which she 
 had started into accord with the more elastic 
 footsteps of her companion. There was some- 
 thing in the serpentine, winding and unwind- 
 ing motion, the coaxingness of the steps, that 
 was deliciously intoxicating to Mae. The color 
 came to her cheeks, the smile played around 
 her lips, and when she paused to breathe, she 
 found the Italians showing their white 
 teeth, and clapping their brown hands in her 
 honor, while the tallest musician gazed at her 
 
MAE MADDEN. 119 
 
 from the dark doorway, with the rapt reverence 
 he gave to all things beautiful and thrilling. 
 She was a new song to him. 
 
 u The Signorina is the veriest Italian of us 
 all," cried Lisetta. 
 
 " She honors our Italy," called Mae's last 
 partner. 
 
 u Her feet are those of a chamois," said one 
 from the north. 
 
 " Nay, she flies," replied another. 
 
 They all spoke in their earnest manner, and 
 the praises, that fall in fulsome flattery in 
 English, were delicate and stimulating as they 
 slid in soft Italian from their full, red lips. 
 Mae tossed her head carelessly, but she sipped 
 the praises and found them sweet. 
 
 " Now for the Tarantella," said the padrona, 
 so Lisetta shook her tambourine wildly, and 
 the very prettiest girl of them all, and a big, 
 brown boy (happy fellow!) began that co- 
 quettish bit of witchery. The pretty girl 
 tripped around and around and wreathed her 
 arms over her head, and the boy knelt appeal- 
 ingly and sprang up passionately again and 
 again, until the clock struck ten, and the party 
 broke up. Mae shook hands with a new friend. 
 He was a stone-cutter, and was soon to be mar- 
 
120 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ried, and he poured out all his plans and hopes 
 into her sympathetic ears, and told of his pretty 
 bride to be, and of her dowry. Mae, in turn, sent 
 her love to the happy bride, and took a charm 
 from her watch-chain to go with it, a tiny 
 silver boat, and she sent it with a hope that 
 some day they might both sail over to America. 
 At which the bridegroom shook his head very 
 decidedly, and kissed Mae's hand and bowed 
 himself out. Then, after she had disrobed her 
 of her borrowed plumes, all the others kissed 
 her hand and bowed themselves out, and Ro- 
 berto and Giovanni awaked, and got up from 
 the corner, and stood on their heads and hallooed 
 as loud as ever they pleased, and the evening 
 was over, and Lisetta and the padrona and the 
 boys and Mae were alone. 
 
 "Oh, oh, oh," cried Mae, "how perfectly 
 perfect. Do you always have such good times 
 as this?" 
 
 u At home, yes," replied Lisetta, folding her 
 hands and smiling. u We have many a play- 
 day on the bay of Naples." Then she roused 
 herself: " Good night, Signorina," she said, 
 u keep your ears open." 
 
 Mae had barely reached her room when she 
 appreciated Lisetta's last words. She heard 
 
MAE MADDEN. 121 
 
 music in the street below. She raised her win- 
 dow; Eric and Norman lifted the parlor window 
 "at the same moment. " Come in here," they 
 cried. So in she ran, took a place between 
 them, and they silently listened to the maskers' 
 serenade. The musicians sang at first the 
 gayest of tunes, but suddenly, by some sub- 
 tile impulse, they changed to quieter minor 
 airs, and sang songs full of tears and passion 
 and love and tenderness. Then they silently 
 turned to go. Norman Mann touched Mae on 
 the shoulder. He handed her a bunch of Car- 
 nival flowers. They were Bero's, but she flung 
 them unhesitatingly into the street, leaning far 
 out*to watch the singers catch them and separ- 
 ate them in the moonlight. They called out 
 loud their thanks their "Grazie, grazie" as 
 sweet as any lily just broken from its stem 
 and as they turned to go Mae saw that each 
 one was decked with a sprig from the bouquet, 
 pulled through his button-hole or the riband 
 of his hat. 
 
 Only the tallest musician, who walked some- 
 what apart, carried his flower tightly clasped in 
 his hand, and now and again he raised it to his 
 lips. He probably dreamed over it that night, 
 and played his dream out in a gentle, wistful, 
 
122 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 minor adoration before the Madonna at the 
 Quattro Fontane the next morning. 
 
 0, the dreams and poems and songs without * 
 words that drop into our lives from the sudden 
 flash of stranger eyes, or the accidental touch of 
 an unknown hand, or the tender warmth of a 
 swift smile! And if our eyes, our touch, our 
 smiles may only have floated off in like manner 
 as dreams and poems and melody to give 
 added rhythm and harmony to other lives. 
 
 Mae drew a long sigh, one of those delight- 
 ful, contented sighs, with a smile wrapped up 
 in it. u I am glad you are so happy," 
 said Norman Mann, smiling down at her. 
 When Norman spoke like that Mae felt only, 
 0, so very content. She quite forgot all 
 grudges against him; she would have liked just 
 at that moment to have the world stand 
 quite still. This was very different from the 
 ordinary Mae. Usually she longed that it 
 might go faster, and would put her pink 
 and white ear quite close to the brown earth to 
 hear if it were turning as swiftly as ever it could. 
 U I like it to hurry, hurry, hurry," said eager, 
 restless Mae. " I love to live quickly and see 
 what's coming next." 
 
 But Mae was not in that mood to-night. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 123 
 
 She leaned out of the window all untroubled. 
 If the sun could stand still off behind the world 
 as he is now and the moon could stand still 
 right before us as she is now and we could 
 stay right here, we three. Why, no, Eric has 
 gone in and is walking up and down nerv- 
 ously. Thus Mae thought, and was quiet. 
 u What are you thinking about? 1 ' asked Nor- 
 man. She told him naturally, with her eyes 
 on his until she reached the words " and we/' 
 Then her eyes fell, and she paused. 
 
 u Yes," replied Norman, " I have the same 
 feeling," and there was a great deal more on the 
 very tippest tip of his tongue. But Mae turned 
 her face from him slightly; the moon stole 
 softly behind the flimsiest little cloud that any 
 one could have seen through, and he paused, 
 silly fellow. These slight withdrawals, that 
 should have urged him on, deceived him. He 
 stopped, and then he remembered Mae's past 
 doings, her recklessness, her waywardness. It 
 was not time yet to speak what he had in his 
 heart to say, and what quivered on his tongue. 
 So he only asked abruptly: kt You will go with 
 me to-morrow night for one of your gayest 
 frolics, will you not? We will go down on 
 the Corso for all the Mocoletti fun. I am 
 8 
 
124 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 very anxious to be in another of your good 
 times." 
 
 U 0, would you like it?" said Mae; "I am so 
 glad. I should delight in it. It will be 
 almost too good." She stopped abruptly 
 again, and gave him a quick, soft glance, just 
 as the moon rode triumphantly out from behind 
 the filmy, flimsy veil, and shone full down on 
 her eyes and hair. It fell on a bright, round, 
 glistening ball, tucked in among some half 
 curls behind her ear. "What is that?" asked 
 Norman. 
 
 " That " Mae put up her hand and drew it 
 out " that is my stiletto. I forgot to give it 
 back to Lisetta. It is pretty, isn't it?" 
 
 Norman took the long needle from her hand 
 and looked at it. u It is not as pretty as the 
 flowered stiletto. Why didn't you get one of 
 those?" 
 
 " Wh} r , do you not know that those are not 
 worn by free maidens? They are one of the 
 added glories of a matron. I like my round, 
 smooth ball a great deal better. It means 
 liberty." And she plunged the steel tremu- 
 lously back into her hair. 
 
 " We had better go in now; this night air is 
 bad for you," The moon blazed scornfully 
 
MAE MADDEN. 125 
 
 down on Norman Mann as he said this. She 
 had had a wide experience, and had rarely seen 
 such a stupid, cowardly fellow, so she thought. 
 Yet, after all, Norman only acted in self-de- 
 fense. Here was a girl by his side who gloried, 
 as it seemed to him, in her freedom, and that 
 being so, he must get away as soon as possible 
 from that window, that moon, and that little 
 girl. 
 
 " Well, Norman," cried Eric, advancing 
 eagerly as they turned from the window, " when 
 do you really suppose it will come off?" 
 
 " Suppose what will come off? 1 ' inquired Mae. 
 
 u 0, I forgot you were here. Well, don't tell 
 any one else. Norman is to fight a duel. 1 ' 
 
 " To fight a duel and be killed?" gasped Mae. 
 
 14 You have but a poor opinion of my powers," 
 laughed Norman, " although the German looked 
 a veteran duellist from his scars. His face was 
 fairly embroidered or fancy-worked with red 
 lines. A sort of hem in his nose, and tucks 
 and seams all over his cheeks. Notice my 
 knowledge in this line, Miss Mae. You ought 
 to be ashamed, Eric, to have spoken of it." 
 
 u Isn't it all a joke?" asked Mae, pushing her 
 head out of the window again, to hide the sud- 
 den white terror in her face. u I didn't suppose 
 
126 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Americans fought duels when they were off 
 pleasuring." This sentence Mae meant to pass 
 as a gay, light, easy speech, to prove that Nor- 
 man Mann and a duel were not such a very 
 dreadful combination to her feminine mind. 
 
 "No, it is no joke, but dead earnest," re- 
 plied Eric. u I am to be his second, and you 
 must keep it a great secret, Mae, till it is all 
 over" 
 
 u All over!" a sudden vision of Norman lying 
 white and motionless with a deep wound across 
 his soft, brown temple. Mae closed her eyes. 
 u I suppose I might as well tell you about it," 
 said Norman, u now that this stupid Eric has let 
 out about the affair, although it may never come 
 to anything. I was dining to-night at a little 
 restaurant on the Felice, a quiet, homelike 
 place, which a good many artists, and especially 
 women, frequent. There is a queer, crazy little 
 American, who thinks herself a painter, and 
 is a harmless lunatic, who is a regular guest 
 at this restaurant. Everybody smiles at her ab- 
 surdities, but is ready enough to be kind to the 
 poor old creature. To-night, however, I was 
 hardly seated when in came a party of Germans, 
 all in mask and Carnival costume. One of 
 them was arrayed in exact imitation of this old 
 
MAM MADDEN. 127 
 
 lady. He had on a peaked bonnet and long, 
 black gloves, with dangling fingers, such as she 
 invariably wears. These he waved around 
 mockingly and seating himself opposite her, he 
 followed her every motion. The ladies at the 
 same table rose and went away. Then up gets 
 this big ruffian and sits down on the edge of the 
 old lady's chair. I could stand it no longer, but 
 jumping in front of him, showered down all the 
 heavy talk I knew in German, Italian and 
 French, subsiding at last into my mother tongue, 
 with her appropriate epithets. Having sense 
 enough left to know that he could not reap the 
 full benefit of English, I pulled out my card, 
 wrote my address on it, and threw it on the 
 table, and I rather think that was understood. 
 There's no country that I have heard of where, 
 men don't know what k we'll fight this out, 
 means." Norman was striding up and down 
 the room now almost as restlessly as Eric had 
 done, but he seated himself again as Mae asked 
 for the rest. 
 
 " The rest is very simple, Miss Mae mere 
 business. I turned to go away, and one of his 
 friends approached me to ask for the name of 
 my second. I gave Eric's here. He bowed and 
 said: l He shall hear from me this evening, 1 
 
128 MA& MADDEN. 
 
 and I came home. The evening has advanced 
 to midnight, but not a word yet. No, it is not 
 quite eleven, I see." 
 
 " You'll have the choice of weapons if they 
 challenge you," said Eric; "you'll take pistols, 
 I suppose? Just think of my living to really 
 assist in a l pistols-and-eoffee-for-two ' affair!" 
 
 " I daresay it will be coffee for two, served 
 separately, and with no thought of pistols. I 
 don't really believe it will come to anything. 
 There are ways of getting out of it,' 1 said Nor- 
 man, lighting a cigarette. 
 
 "Will you refuse to fight? 1 ' asked Mae, and her 
 heart, which had been white with fear for Nor- 
 man the second before, flashed now with quick, 
 red scorn. Even the Huguenot maiden would, 
 after all, have despised her lover if he had quietly 
 allowed her to tie the white handkerchief to his 
 arm. Believe it, she loved him far, far better 
 as she clung to him, pressed closely to his 
 warm, living heart, because she realized in an 
 agony that his honor was strong enough to 
 burst even the tender bonds of her dear love, 
 and that he would break from her round arms 
 to rush into that ghostly, ghastly death-em- 
 brace on the morrow, at the dreadful knell of 
 St. Bartholomew bells. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 129 
 
 Suppose he had yielded. Suppose we saw 
 him in the picture standing quietly, unresist- 
 ingly, as her soft fingers bound the white badge, 
 that meant protection and life, to his arm. 
 Would not she, as well as he, have known that 
 it was a badge of cowardice, and that he wore 
 a heart as white ? 
 
 And afterwards, would she have loved the 
 living man, breathing in air heavy with the 
 hearts' life of his brothers and friends, as she 
 worshiped the dead man, whose cold body rested 
 forever down deep in mother earth's brown, 
 soft bosom, but whose very life of life swelled 
 the great throng of heroes and martyrs who 
 have closed their own eyes upon life's pictures, 
 that those pictures might shine clearer and 
 brighter to other eyes ? 
 
 If the man had yielded, and the picture 
 showed him thus, would we see the Huguenot 
 lovers adorning half the houses of the land? 
 Most often they are found in that particular 
 corner of the home belonging to some maiden 
 that sacred room of her own, where she prays 
 her prayers, and lives her most secret life. I 
 have often wondered at the many girls who 
 hang that especial picture over their fire-places. 
 It must be a case of unconscious ideality. 
 
130 
 
 They realize that love must be so subject to 
 honor that heart-strings would break for the 
 sake of that honor, if need be, even though 
 the harmonious love-song of two hearts is 
 hushed; and what is the love-song of any two 
 beings compared to a life-song of honor for the 
 world those wonderful life-songs that we all 
 know? One of them sings itself so loudly to 
 me now, over ages of romance and history, that 
 I must let my simple story wait and give way 
 to it for a minute. 
 
 There was a man who lived once. If God 
 did not create him, Homer did. The Oracle 
 told him that the first man who put foot on the 
 Trojan shores would die. He knew this before 
 he started on his voyage for Greece. He left a 
 wife and home behind him, whom he dearly 
 loved. I wonder if he used to pace the deck of 
 the rich barge, and listen to the men chatting 
 around him, and smile as they planned of re- 
 turning, proud and victorious, to their homes 
 and their wives. 
 
 All the while under his smile he knew he was 
 to die, not in the glory of fight, although his 
 sword swung sharp and bright at his side, not 
 in any thrilling fashion, to be sung of and wept 
 of by his fellows. 
 
MAfl MADDEN. Igl 
 
 All the while the heavy barge sailed on, and 
 at last land came in sight. < I wonder if his 
 heart was full when he saw it? Did he remem- 
 ber his wife and his home ? Did he feel his life 
 strong within him, and eager as a battle-horse, 
 as he neared the land where wars were to be 
 foughfc, and glories won? 
 
 All the while his heart was firm. He stood 
 the very foremost of them all, as they drifted 
 quite in to the green, green shore. Around 
 him men talked and laughed, and the sun 
 shone. He may have laid his hand com- 
 mandingly on some youthful shoulders and 
 pushed back the eager boy who longed to 
 bound first into this new world. He may have 
 saved him thus from death for life. We do not 
 know. 
 
 All we do know is, that with his own brave 
 feet he marched ahead of them all, solemnly, 
 smilingly, with the oracle in his heart. From 
 the vessel to the green, green shore such a 
 little step. He leaps from the Grecian barge 
 to the Trojan land, alive. Does he turn to look 
 at his comrades and off eastwards, beyond home- 
 wards, with a great thrill before he falls dead ? 
 We do not know. 
 
 All we do know is, that we thrill now as we 
 
132 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 see him leaping to his death, even over this gap 
 of ages, through these shadows of unreality. 
 
 We have left Mae flashing scorn at Norman 
 for a long while, a much longer while than 
 she really needed for her flash, for Norman's 
 angry start, violent exclamation, and indignant 
 glance convinced her of her mistake before he 
 answered her. 
 
 u I refuse to fight I Great I beg your 
 pardon, Miss Mae, but of course I'll fight. I 
 only hope the fellow isn't such a craven as to 
 let it blow over. ^However, I strongly suspect 
 policy and his friends will keep him from it. 
 For my part, I would like to break: my lance 
 for the poor woman. Any good blow struck for 
 the fair thing, helps old Mother Earth a bit, I 
 suppose." 
 
 u That's your idea of life?" queried Eric, 
 rather gravely. u My efforts are all to push 
 Eric Madden on his way a bit." 
 
 " And I haven't any idea; I just live," said 
 Mae, u like a black and tan dog. I wish I were 
 one. Then the only disagreeable part of me, 
 my conscience, would be out of the way. But 
 what has all this to do with the duel?" " That 
 has something to do with it, I fancy," said Eric, 
 rising and leaving the room hastily, as the bell 
 
MAE MADDEN. 133 
 
 rang. u No, stay where you are. I'll receive 
 him in the little salon." Mae rose and walked 
 to the fireside, and looked down on the two 
 small logs of wet wood that sizzled on the fire- 
 dogs. The faint, red flame that flickered 
 around them, looked sullen and revengeful, 
 she thought, as she watched the feeble blaze 
 intently. It seemed hours since Eric had left 
 the room. What was Norman thinking? What 
 was the stranger saying out in the little salon? 
 No, no, she would not think thus. She would 
 repeat something to quiet herself poetry 
 what should it be? Ah, here is Eric. 
 
 It was Eric. His face was flushed. His lip 
 curled. "Coward! craven! 1 ' he exclaimed, 
 u Coward, craven." 
 
 u Well, tell us about it," said Norman, coolly, 
 but a wave of color rushed over his face. 
 
 " 0, palaver and stuff. Somebody's dread- 
 fully ill dying, I believe, and that somebody 
 is wife, or mother, or son to, this brute you 
 challenged. He's got to go, the coward. If 
 you are ever in his vicinity again, and send him 
 your card, he will understand it and meet you 
 at such place and with such weapons as you 
 prefer. Bah too thin!" and Eric concluded 
 with this emphatic statement. 
 
13J. MA& MADDflN. 
 
 Mae leaned her head against her two clasped 
 hands which rested on the mantel-piece. How 
 strangely everything looked; even the dim fire 
 had a sort of aureole about it, as her eyes rested 
 there again ; but when one looks through tears, 
 all things are haloed mistily. Norman turned 
 and looked at Mae, as Eric walked impatiently 
 about. She did not move or speak. He walked 
 to her side, and stood looking down at her. 
 The faint mist in her left eye was forming into 
 a bright, clear globe as large as any April rain- 
 drop. Mae knew this, and knew it would 
 fall, unless she put up her hand and brushed 
 it away, and that would be worse. The 
 color rose to her cheeks as she waited the 
 dreadful moment. She was perfectly still, 
 her hands clasped before her, her head bent, 
 as the crystal drop gathered all the mist 
 and halo in its full, round embrace, and pattered 
 down upon the third finger of her left hand 
 her wedding-ring finger and lay there, clear 
 and sparkling as a diamond! 
 
 Norman Mann stooped and laid his hand over 
 it. " You are glad, then!" " I should be sorry 
 to have you die," said Mae, but her dimples and 
 blushes and drooping eye-lids said, oh, a great 
 deal more. " Good night." she fluttered, and 
 ran off. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 AE dreamed happy dreams that night, 
 and awoke with a smile on her lips. 
 She dressed with the greatest care, put 
 a touch of the color Norman liked at 
 her throat, and fastened a charm he had given 
 her to her bracelet. Still, she loitered on her 
 way to the breakfast-room, and when she seated 
 herself at the table, a sudden embarrassment 
 made her keep her eyes on her plate, or talk to 
 Eric, or Edith, or any one but Norman. Yet 
 she was perfectly conscious of his every word 
 and motion. She knew he only took two cups 
 of coffee instead of three, and that he helped 
 her to mandarins a fruit of which she was very 
 fond five times, so that she had a plate heaping 
 with golden untouched balls before her. After 
 breakfast, she felt a great desire to run away, so 
 she asked Eric to take her to the Capitol, and 
 leave her there for a time. " I want to see some- 
 thing solid this morning, that has lasted a long 
 while, and the marbles will do me good. 1 ' 
 
 Yes, Eric would take her at once. Would 
 she go and get her hat? She went for it, and 
 
136 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 scolded herself all the time for running away 
 when she wanted to stay home. Yet, after all, 
 who dares put out one's hand to grasp the moon 
 when at last it approaches ? No woman, at any 
 rate. 
 
 There was a malicious sort of teasing pleasure 
 in running away from Norman, mingled with a 
 shrinking modesty; and, besides, he knew the 
 way to the Capitol, if he chose to follow, and 
 knew she was to be there alone. So, on the 
 whole, Mae went off with a blissful heart. 
 
 As she sat down in that celebrated room, im- 
 mortalized by the Gladiator, the Faun and the 
 Antinous, scales seemed to fall from her eyes and 
 a weight from her heart. Life meant something 
 more than the mere play she delighted in, or the 
 labor she despised. She took it in in this way. 
 She realized, first of all, the enduringness of the 
 marbles. They had stood, they will stand, for 
 thousands of years. What have stood? What 
 will stand? Idle blocks of stone, without form 
 or meaning, or simply three beautiful shapes? 
 No; three souls, thinks Mae, three real people, 
 and she looks at the abiding faun, freedom and 
 joy of the Satyr, the continual sentimental sad- 
 ness of the Antinous, and the perpetual brave 
 death-struggle of the Gladiator. They are living 
 
MAE MADDEN. 137 
 
 on now, and touching our hearts. Their mute 
 lips open other eloquent mouths to speak for 
 them. Hawthorne and Byron tell us what the 
 Faun's soul, what the Gladiator's soul, look 
 from the white marbles to us, and the world 
 daily repeats the story the Antinous whispers in 
 his bent, beautiful head, the vanitas vanitatum 
 that our own hearts whisper, when we drop 
 earnest life for voluptuous pleasures. 
 
 The Faun may smile, although life is only 
 one long play-day in green fields and woods, 
 because he is a Faun. The man must sigh, 
 when he has drained his wine-cups and laughed 
 his heartiest laugh, and wakes to another morn- 
 ing, because he is a man. The cry of humanity 
 echoes in our souls. We cannot stifle it; we 
 may hush it, and follow our idle joys, but the 
 day comes when we bend our head with Anti- 
 nous and Solomon and the rest of them, and 
 sigh out our vanitas, vanitas also, in the great 
 weary chorus. 
 
 No need, alas! for a Hawthorne,' or Byron, or 
 even a Shakspeare to interpret what the Anti- 
 nous says for us. Our own hearts do it. 
 
 Mae caught the spirit of all this, as her eyes 
 roamed out of the window on the Sabine hills, 
 where woods and springs sang. She saw the 
 
138 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 aqueducts bounding, even in their ruin, arch 
 after arch, to the treasure house of the waters. 
 "They never can reach it, now," thinks she, 
 u never. Suppose they cannot, is not the spirit the 
 same?" And now Mae is ready for the sudden 
 light that dawns on her soul. She springs to 
 her feet. She is alone in the room with the 
 marble men; and they are quiet; even the Gladi- 
 ator bites back his last groan once more. 
 
 u The Eternal City," shouts Mae; "I know 
 what it means at last. Oh ! Rome, Rome, I love 
 you !" and she rests her hand on the window- 
 sill, and looks out on Rome. " Why, it is like 
 a resurrection morn. Ruins? Yes, it is all 
 ruins, dry bones, and great dead in dust ; but 
 there is something more. I only saw that grave- 
 yard part of it before; now, the spirit of the great 
 men, arid great deeds, and words, and thoughts, 
 and prayers," cries Mae, exultantly. " Why, 
 they are here; not dead, like the rest, but alive, 
 all around us. Oh! Rome, Rome, forgive me !" 
 
 Now, this might have seemed absurd to the 
 custode, or some other people, if they had put 
 their head in at the door just then. But they 
 didn't; and, really, it was not absurd. I cannot 
 believe that this small Mae Madden is the only 
 being who has had a swift, brilliant awakening 
 
MAE MADDEN. 139 
 
 from the first surface, depressing thoughts of 
 Rome an awakening to the living spirits which 
 float proudly over their vacant shells that lie 
 below the old pavements. Once you do feel 
 the strong, rich Roman life about you, the 
 decay, the ruin float off on the dust of the 
 ages, before t the glorified breath of proud 
 matrons and stately warriors, who step 
 over the centuries to walk by your side. 
 And the centuries have improved them, have 
 left their grandeur, and nobility, and bravery, 
 and civilized them a bit. They form into pag- 
 eants for you, and fill the baths and the pal- 
 aces, but never crowd the Coliseum for the 
 dreadful contests, unless, maybe, for an occasional 
 bull-fight some great, horrid, big bull which 
 would be killed at market to-morrow ab any rate 
 and even that is as you please. It is won- 
 derful, truly, once we discern the spirits around 
 us, to notice what a miraculous place Rome ifey 
 how the intervening years of purgatorial flames 
 have turned old Nero himself into a fairly 
 benevolent, soft old gentleman, even though his 
 estates have crumbled to such an extent that he 
 may put his golden palace into the head of his 
 cane, which he always carries now, since his char- 
 iots have gone away. Where are they ? Caligula 
 9 
 
140 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 has even made it up with his mother-in-law, 
 and you reflect with joy on that fact, as the two 
 flit by your mind's eye, hand in hand. All this 
 nonsense is for those of us who have awakenings. 
 The rest of " our party " may sit at Spillman's 
 and eat coffee-cakes and sip Lachrym.86 Christi, 
 while we walk alone through the Coliseum, with 
 the crowd of old heathen. They stop, every one, 
 at the iron cross in the middle, reared over their 
 carnage and mad mirth, and press their lips to 
 it now. The centuries have done that. We 
 only, alas! stand gazing mournfully, doubtingly. 
 " Will you have another coffee-cake?" says some 
 one, and we remember that we are at Spill- 
 man's also. And, indeed, we might be more 
 sensible to stay with our party always; eat 
 cakes, drink wine, laugh at the old world, vaunt 
 the new, read Baedeker and the Bible, say our 
 orthodox Protestant prayers, with a special 
 " Lead us not into Romanism" codicil, and go to 
 becl, and dream of our own golden houses, Paris 
 dresses, and fat letters of credit. 
 
 At any rate, Mae Madden was electrified by a 
 great sudden sweep of love, a surging rush of 
 reverence for Rome, and makes no doubt in her 
 own mind, to this day, that the Faun laughed 
 with her in her joy. In this exalted frame of 
 
MAE MADDEN. 141 
 
 mind, she wandered down through the long 
 halls. She was passing from the room of the 
 Caesars when she heard Norman's voice. So 
 he had come for her with Eric. She had half 
 fancied he would. She paused to listen. It 
 was a ringing elastic voice, in no wise lagging 
 in speech, with a certain measurement in its 
 tones, as if he weighed his words and thoughts, 
 and gave them out generously, pound for pound, 
 a fair measure which our grandmother's recipes 
 approved. Mae smiled to herself. " He has 
 loved Rome always. He caught the spirit of it 
 long ago. He will be glad to know I have 
 found it also. I wish " and Mae sighed a 
 scrap of a sigh, and looked down at the toe of 
 her boot, with which she drew little semi-circles 
 before her. 
 
 Mae was truly in a very tender mood to-day. 
 I think if Norman had caught sight of her face 
 at that moment, he would have sent Eric off, and 
 right there and then, before all the Caesars why 
 what is the matter? The face contracts as if in 
 pain. What was the cause ? She had heard Nor- 
 man say, " I'm afraid I was wrong, but I never 
 meant anything by my attentions to the girl, 
 Eric. It was really on your account. I never 
 liked Miss Rae particularly. I was thrown 
 
142 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 much with her because you and I have been to- 
 gether constantly, but she does not grow on me. 
 I never expected you should consider me as her 
 necessary cavalier always. As for this evening, 
 I am engaged to Miss Mae, so that settles this 
 matter, but I wish that hereafter you would not 
 get me into such scrapes. 1 ' 
 
 Poor Mae ! she leaned against Nero or was it 
 Caracalla? surely somebody very hard and cold 
 and cruel, and stopped breathing for a mo- 
 ment. For she had heard wrong, had misunder- 
 stood Miss Rae for Miss Mae, and supposed it 
 was of herself that he spoke. Her heart stood 
 still for the minutest part of a minute. Then 
 she turned softly and quickly, went back to the 
 Gladiator's room, left word with the custode for 
 Eric that she wasn't well, and had gone home 
 alone, walked off down the Capitol steps, took 
 a cab and drove away. 
 
 At home she had a long, earnest talk with 
 Lisetta, after which Lisetta had a short, brisk 
 talk with the padrona. "It means money," she 
 said, " and I can play I did it for the Signorina's 
 safety." Later, Mae wrote a brief, polite note 
 to Norman Mann. She was ill, had gone to bed, 
 and wouldn't be able to go to the Corso with him 
 to-night. She tried to stifle the hot anger and 
 
MAE MABVEN. 143 
 
 other emotions out of the words, and read and 
 re-read them to assure herself that they were per- 
 fectly easy, natural, and polite. At last she tore 
 them up and sent this instead: 
 
 MY DEAR MR. MANN: Such a pity that we are not 
 to have our fun, after all. Yet, perhaps it is just as 
 well. I should be very speedily without my light, and 
 the cry of " senza moccolo, senza moccolo" must be very 
 dispiriting. Have a good time right along. Good-bye 
 good-bye. 
 
 Of course, if Mae had not been beside herself 
 with conflicting emotions, she would never have 
 sent this note, or repeated the good-bye in that 
 echoing, departing sort of way. Norman Mann 
 knit his brow as he read it. u What is the row 
 now?" he thought. u What a child it is, any- 
 way. She has had the mocoletii fun in her mind 
 since we left America, and now she throws it 
 away. Well, there's no help for it; I'm 
 booked for Miss Rae. I'll get Eric to see if Mae's 
 really ill. I wonder if she's afraid of me, be- 
 cause she cried last night, afraid I took that 
 big tear for more than it was worth. 
 
 " Mae," said Eric, entering her room an hour 
 later, " Norman feels dreadfully that you are 
 not able to go to-night, and so do I. I sup- 
 pose those wretched marbles did it this morning. 
 Couldn't you possibly come?" 
 
MADDEN. 
 
 " No," replied M-ae, rising on her elbow, " but 
 sit down a moment, Eric." 
 
 " How pretty you look/' said her brother, 
 seating himself by her side. Mae's hair was 
 tumbled in brown waves that looked as if they 
 couldn't quite make up their minds to curl, 
 much as they wanted to ; her eyes shone 
 strangely; and the little scarlet shawl that she 
 had drawn over her head and shoulders was no 
 brighter than her flushed cheeks. She smiled 
 at her brother, but said hurriedly: u Tell me of 
 your plans for to-night. I suppose you and 
 Mr. Mann are going with your new friends." 
 
 " Yes, Norman will go with me and the girls, 
 but he does it with a bad enough grace. He's 
 dreadfully tired of Miss Rae; and, to tell you 
 the truth, Mae, she is rather namby-pamby 
 very different from Miss Hopkins, and then, be- 
 sides, he had so set his heart on going with 
 you to-night." 
 
 "0, yes," said Mae, scornfully, and bit her 
 lips. 
 
 " Why, Mae, what is the matter with you? 
 You seem to doubt every one and everything. 
 You know Norman is truth itself." "Is he?" 
 asked Mae, indifferently. 
 
 u I've seen for a long time," continued Eric, 
 
MAE MADDEN. 
 
 " that you two were not the friends you onee 
 were, but I don't understand this open dislike. 
 Doesn't it spoil your pleasure? You don't seem 
 to have the real old-fashioned good times, my 
 little girl," and Eric pulled his clumsy dear 
 hand through a twist of the brown hair caress- 
 ingly. 
 
 " 0, Eric," cried Mae, u that is like old times 
 again," and a tear splattered down into the big 
 hand. "What, crying, Mae?" " No, dear 
 that is, yes. I believe I am a little bit homesick. 
 I wish I could go back behind my teens again. 
 Do you remember the summer that I was 
 twelve that summer up by the lake? I wish 
 you and I could paddle around in one of the old 
 flat-bottomed tubs once more, don't you, Eric? 
 We'd go for lilies and fish for minnows that 
 is, we'd fish for perch and catch the minnows 
 and talk about when you should go to college 
 and pull in the race, and I should wear a long 
 dress and learn all the college tunes to sing 
 with you and your Yale friends. Do you re- 
 member, Eric? And now, dear me, you lost 
 your race, and I hate my long gowns. 
 my dear brother do you like it all as well 
 as you thought you would?" 
 
 " Why, Mae, you poor little tot, you're senti- 
 
146 MAfl MADDEN'. 
 
 mental for you. Yes, I like the future as well 
 as I always did. I never gave much for the 
 present, at any rate." 
 
 u But I did, Eric; I always did, till just now, 
 and now I hate it, and I'm afraid of the 
 future, and I'd like to grow backwards, v and in- 
 stead, in a month, I'll have another birth-day, 
 and go into those dreadful twenties." Then 
 Mae was quiet a moment. " Eric, I was senti- 
 mental," she said, after a pause. u Really, I do 
 like the future ver} 7 much. I quite forgot how 
 much for the moment." 
 
 " You're a strange child, indeed," replied 
 Eric, the puzzled. " Your words are like light- 
 ning. I had just got melted down and ready 
 to reply to your reminiscences by lots of others, 
 and here you are all jolly and matter-of-fact 
 again. I was growing so dreadfully unselfish 
 that I should have insisted on staying home 
 with you this evening to cheer you up a bit." 
 
 u And give up the mocoletti! Why, Eric! 
 I sEouldn't have known how to take such an 
 offer. No, no, trot off and array yourself, and 
 you may come back and say good-bye." 
 
 u I must say good-bye now, dear, for I dine at 
 the Costanzi with the girls and their aunt." 
 
 " Now, just now, Eric?" 
 
MAE MAbDEtf* 147 
 
 u Why yes, Mae. You are getting blue again, 
 aren't you? Getting ready for Ash Wednesday 
 to-morrow?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no, dear. Kiss me, Eric, again. 
 You're a good, dear boy. No; I didn't cry that 
 drop at all. Good-bye; and to-morrow is Ash 
 Wednesday. But we don't sorrow or fast in 
 Paradise, I suppose." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 HE Corso was all ablaze. The whole 
 world was there. Under a balcony 
 stood a party of peasants. Of this 
 group, two were somewhat aside. 
 One of these was tall, dark, a fair type" of South- 
 ern Italian; the other small, agile and graceful, 
 dressed in a fresh contadina costume, with her 
 brown hair braided down her shoulders. She 
 seemed excited, and as the crowd pressed nearer 
 she would draw back half-fearfully. " Lisetta," 
 she whispered, " I am spoiling your good time. 
 Talk to your friends; never mind me. I will 
 follow by your side, and soon I shall catch the 
 spirit of it all, too." Saying this, she stepped 
 from under the balcony, held out her feeble 
 little taper and joined in the cries around her, 
 pausing to blow at any lowered bit of wax that 
 came in her way. It was maddening sport; 
 her light was extinguished again and again, but 
 she would plead to have it relit, and there was 
 sure to be some tender-hearted, kindly knight at 
 hand to help her. 
 
 She ran on quickly, fearlessly, gliding and 
 
MAE MADDEN. 149 
 
 creeping and sliding through the crowd, her 
 hair flying, her eyes dancing. Even in the 
 dense throng many turned 'to look at her, and 
 one tall man started suddenly from the shadow 
 of a side street, where he had been standing 
 motionless, and threw himself before the girl. 
 He put out his arm, grasped her tightly, and 
 drew her a few feet into the shadow. " Sig- 
 norina!" he said. " Hush, hush," she whis- 
 pered then in colder tones. " Let me go, Signor ; 
 you are mistaken. You do not know me.' 1 
 He smiled quietly, holding her hands clasped in 
 his. " I do not know you, Signorina? You do 
 not know me. Your face is the picture always 
 before my eyes." 
 
 " Yes, yes, forgive me," she fluttered, " I was 
 startled, and indeed I am no Signorina now, 
 but one of your own country peasants. I am 
 with Lisetta. Why, where is Lisetta? " 
 
 Where, indeed, was she? There were hun- 
 dreds of contadine in the great crowd surging 
 by, but no Lisetta. The little peasant wrung 
 her hands quite free from the man's grasp. 
 " I must go home," she said. " I don't want 
 any more Carnival." 
 
 "No, no," said the officer, quietly, reassur- 
 ingly. " Get cool. Tell me how Lisetta looks 
 
150 MAR MADDEN. 
 
 and is dressed, and if we can not find her here, 
 I will take you up to your friend's balcony." 
 
 " 0, no, not there. Anywhere else, but not 
 there." 
 
 " Why not?" asked Bero. 
 
 u Because, because, yes, I will tell you," said 
 Mae, remembering her wrongs, and suddenly 
 moved by the sympathy and softness of the great 
 eyes above her, " because they think I am home 
 ill, and here I am, you see," and she laughed 
 a little hurriedly, " besides, I go away with Li- 
 setta to-morrow morning, hush, let no one 
 hear, to Sorrento. You must never, never tell. 
 How do I look? Will I make a good peasant, 
 when once the dear sun has browned my hands 
 and forehead, and I have grown Italianized?" 
 And she lifted her face, into which the saucy 
 gaiety had returned, up to him temptingly. 
 
 His warm blood was kindled. " You are a 
 little child of the sun-god now," he exclaimed, 
 passionately. " May I share some of your 
 days in heaven? I am ordered to Naples to- 
 morrow night; shall be only twelve hours be- 
 hind you. May I come on the day after to see 
 you in your new home? " 
 
 ' l 0, how delightful! But, perhaps, my lord, 
 our little cottage by the sea isn't grand enough 
 
MAE MADDEN. 151 
 
 for your spurs and buttons and glory. We are 
 simple folks you know, peasants all, but our 
 hearts, Signor, they are hospitable, and such as 
 we have we will gladly give you. What do you 
 say to the bay of Naples, and oranges for our 
 luncheon day after to-morrow?" And Mae 
 laughed lightly and joyously. Her little burnt 
 taper fell to the ground, and she clasped her 
 hands together. u What a happy thing life 
 will be!" 
 
 u Will you live there and be a peasant for- 
 ever?" asked Bero, leaning forward. u There 
 are villas by the sea, too, Signorina." 
 
 Mae didn't hear these last words. Her heart 
 had stood still on that u forever." Live there for- 
 ever, forever, and never see her mother or 
 Eric, or, or any one again! u I hadn't thought 
 of that," she said, u I hadn't thought of that." 
 She stood still with her hands clasped, thinking. 
 The officer at her side, looking down at her, 
 was thinking also. He was fighting a slight 
 mental struggle, a sort of combat he was quite 
 unused to. Should he let the child go on in 
 this wild freak? He knew the cottage by the 
 sea; the peasant home would be dreadful to her. 
 He knew that by that same day after to-morrow, 
 life in lower Italy, with the dirty, coarse people 
 
152 *** MADDEN. 
 
 about her would be a burden. Yet he hesitated. 
 He fought the battle in this way : Should he not 
 stand a better chance if he let her go? He 
 had his leave of absence for three weeks (this 
 was true; "ordered to Naples," he had called it 
 to Mae). Three weeks away from , his world, 
 near this winsome, strange, magnetic little be- 
 ing, with the bay of Naples, arid moonlight, and 
 his own glories and her loveliness ! He couldn't 
 give up this chance. No, no. He would surely 
 see her in a few hours after her troubles began, 
 and comfort her. So he only smiled quietly 
 down at her again, as she stood troubled by his 
 side, and said: u Lisetta will seek you near your 
 balcony if she knows where it is. Don't be 
 troubled." 
 
 u But where is my balcony?" asked Mae. 
 
 u Come here," said Bero, leading her slightly 
 forward. She looked up and saw the quiet side- 
 window, where day after day the officer had 
 flung her the sweet flowers when no one was 
 looking. " I know this place very well," he 
 said meaningly. Mae smiled a little cheerfully. 
 u You have beautiful taste," she replied, "I 
 have never seen such exquisite bouquets before." 
 
 Bero stroked his moustaches complacently. 
 " You honor me, Signorina. I hope you may 
 
MAE MADDEN. 153 
 
 receive many, many more beautiful flowers 
 from the same hand." He whispered these last 
 words, and Mae turned her head half uneasily. 
 She looked up at the balcony. How odd it was 
 that there, but a few feet away, were Mrs. Jer- 
 rold, Edith, and Albert. She fancied she could 
 detect their voices, though she could not see 
 them. The Hopkins-Rae window was vacated. 
 u The girls " were probably down on the Corso 
 with Eric and Norman, and Mae drew a little 
 nearer to Bero, and looked up half appealingly. 
 His eyes were fixed strangely on something or 
 some one across the street. Mae followed their 
 gaze, and saw upon the opposite balcony the 
 beautiful veiled lady. She held in her hand a 
 long rod tipped with a blazing taper. 
 
 " 0, she is like a vestal virgin with her light, 
 or a queen with a sceptre,' 1 cried Mae exultingly. 
 
 u She may be the vestal virgin, but the queen 
 is by my side," said Bero earnestly. 
 
 Mae wished he would not talk in this way, 
 and she tried to laugh it off. " I have no scep- 
 tre or crown ; I'm but a poor queen in my com- 
 mon garb." 
 
 " We'll have the coronation day after to-mor- 
 row," replied Bero, very earnestly still. 
 
 " Tell me about her," and Mae nodded her 
 
154 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 head toward the strange lady. " There is little 
 to tell," said Bero, in a quiet tone. u Her brother 
 is well known in Rome as an artist. He lives 
 there with his sister and an old duenna. She 
 wears this mysterious veil constantly, and some 
 fanciful people see just as mysterious a cloud 
 resting about her life. I only know she is 
 strange and beautiful, and that her name is 
 Lillia." 
 
 Yet Bero had seen this woman almost daily 
 for six months. But he only knew she was 
 strange and beautiful, and that her name was 
 Lillia. 
 
 Mae had never spoken to the veiled stranger, 
 yet if Bero had turned upon her and asked, 
 " Who is she?" she would have replied: U I do 
 not know her name or where she lives, but I 
 know she struggles, and despairs, and smiles 
 over all. And I know her suffering -comes from 
 sorrow not from sin." But Mae did not say 
 all this. She only looked at the veiled lady. 
 Her vestal lamp had dropped for the moment, 
 and she seemed to be gazing far away. A fold 
 of her heavy veil fell over her brow quite down 
 to her great dark eyes. They were unshaded, 
 yet they too, seemed clouded for the moment. 
 u Her name is Lillia," said Mae, reassuringly to 
 
MAE MADDEN. 155 
 
 herself. " Her name is Lillia. I am sure she is 
 like her name." Bero smiled. Just then 
 Lisetta appeared. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ARLY the next morning, in the misty 
 light, Lisetta and Mae, the latter still in 
 her contadina costume, left the house 
 quietly. In an hour the train for 
 Naples was to start, but Lisetta wanted to say 
 her prayers in Rome on this Ash Wednesday. 
 They wandered into a little church, one of the 
 many Roman churches, and knelt side by side, 
 Lisetta with her beads and her penance, and 
 Mae with her thoughts, which grew dreary 
 enough before the peasant was ready to go. 
 Mae had already entrusted her money to Liset- 
 ta' s keeping some one hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars, which she had gotten the day before from 
 Albert to buy clothes with and with her money 
 she had also resigned all care. She did not 
 know therefore, until the train started, that 
 their seats were in a third-class carriage. Every 
 one was hurrying on board, so Mae was obliged 
 to jump in without a word, and accept her fate 
 as best she could. It was no very pleasant fate. 
 The van was dirfcy, crowded, garlic-scented. 
 Mae was plucky, however, and knew she was to 
 
MAE MADDEN. 157 
 
 find dirt and dreadful odors everywhere. Two 
 months of Rome had taught her that. But it 
 grew very dreadful in the close travelling-car- 
 riage. There was an old woman at her side, 
 with a deformed hand, and two soldiers oppo- 
 site, who stared rudely at her, and made loud, 
 unpleasant remarks; and having no books, and 
 nothing to entertain herself with, she was forced 
 to curl up in a corner, and try to sleep, which 
 she could not do. 
 
 Poor child! it was a hard day. Dull and 
 dreary outside, and within, the sickening odors 
 and people. Back in Rome, what were they 
 doing? Had they found out that she had gone? 
 And Eric, how was he feeling? No, no, she must 
 not think of all this. It belonged to the past. 
 Before her lay Sorrento, the bay of Naples, 
 oranges, white clouds, and the children of the 
 sun. Mamma was south, too if she were 
 only going to her. So the day dragged on, 
 until with the evening they reached Naples. 
 They spent the night with a friend of Lisetta, 
 ' who rented apartments to English and Ameri- 
 cans. Mae was fortunate, therefore, in securing 
 an unlet bedroom that was comfortably fur- 
 nished. She enjoyed listening to Lisetta's 
 stories of Rome and the Carnival; and after a 
 
158 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 quiet night in a clean bed, awoke tolerably 
 happy and very eager for her first sight of the 
 bay. They took an early train out to Castella- 
 mare, and as they left the city, Mae wondered 
 if Bero were just entering it. But she soon 
 forgot him and every one in the blue glories 
 of tire bay. 
 
 At Castellamare, Graetano, Lisetta's husband, 
 was awaiting them, with a malicious little 
 donkey, tricked out gaily enough in tags of 
 color and tinkling bells. It was very quaint and 
 delightful to get into the funny, low, rattling 
 cart, and go jogging off, while the feminine 
 sight-seers fanned themselves in the windows of 
 the ladies' waiting-room, and grumbled, and the 
 poor masculine travellers bartered in poor 
 Italian, with their certain-to-conquer enemies, 
 those triumphant swindlers, the drivers of the 
 conveyances between Sorrento and Castellamare 
 
 Then they began that wonderful ride along 
 the coast. The horrors of the day before rolled 
 away like a mist as the donkey jogged along 
 that miraculous drive. Lisetta and Gaetano 
 chattered together, and Mae sat very still, with 
 her face to the sea, drinking in all the glory, as 
 she had longed and planned. Hope revived in 
 her breast, pride had stood by her all the while, 
 
MAE MADDEN. 159 
 
 and here was glorious nature coming to her 
 aid. She was going swiftly to the orange 
 groves and the children of the sun. She should 
 see Talila and brown babies and dancing, and 
 at night a great, yellow moon would light up 
 the whole scene. So on and on they went, the 
 travelling carriages dashing by them now and 
 then, with their three donkeys abreast, and the 
 driver cracking his whip, and the travellers oh- 
 ing and ah-ing. 
 
 " That is the most picturesque peasant I have 
 yet seen," said a gentle lady in brown to her 
 husband, as they passed the humble little party. 
 " Yes, she is clean, and more like the ideal than 
 the actual peasant, and I am very glad I have 
 seen her." 
 
 Really, Mae was for the moment, at a quick 
 glance, the ideal peasant. Her hands lay in her 
 lap, her face was toward the sea, and her atti- 
 tude and features were all full of that glow of 
 existence that peasant portraits possess. She 
 lived and moved and had her being as part of a 
 great, warm, live picture. If the lady in brown 
 had not passed so quickly, however, she would 
 have seen a something in Mae's face that spoiled 
 her for a peasant, an earnestness in her admir- 
 ation, a sharp intensity in her joy, that was very 
 
160 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 different from the languid content of a Southern 
 Italian. Her movements were rather like those 
 of the Northern squirrel, which climbs nimbly 
 and frisks briskly, than like the sinuous, serpen- 
 tine motions of the Southern creatures of the 
 soil. We are, after all, born where we belong, 
 as a rule, and the rest of us soon belong where 
 we are born. 
 
 After a time the donkey pattered along to- 
 wards a little patch of houses on the shore. 
 They had already passed a half dozen of similar 
 settlements. Very dirty children ran about cry- 
 ing, ugly old women knitted, mongrel dogs 
 and cats barked and yelped and rolled in the 
 mud. Bits of orange-peel and old cabbage and 
 other refuse food lay piled near the doors. There 
 were, to be sure, young girls with dark eyes, plait- 
 ing straw, and the very dirt heaps had a pictur- 
 esque sort of air. An artist might linger a 
 moment to look, but never to enter. Yet it 
 was here that Mae must enter. This was her 
 new home. The neighbors came crowding 
 about curiously, and she was hurried into the 
 little hut that seemed as if it were carved 
 roughly from some big garlic, probablyf by 
 taking out the heart of it for dinner. Mae 
 hardly comprehended the situation at first, but 
 
MAE MADDEN. 161 
 
 when she began to realize that this was a sub- 
 stitute for sea breeze, and that the coarse 
 clipped patois (which sounded worse in the mass 
 than when it fell from Lisetta's lips alone) was 
 in place of the flowing melody of speech she 
 had longed for, she grew sick at heart. The 
 folly, the dreadfulness of what she had done, 
 swept over her like a flood, and with it came 
 dreadful fear. She was helpless, an outcast. 
 Pride would never let her go home. She could 
 go nowhere else. They had her money, and 
 here she must live and die. She sat down in a 
 sort of stupor, and paid no heed to the squab- 
 bling children who pulled at her gown, or the 
 dogs who sniffed snappingly at the stranger. 
 
 Lisetta, busy with greetings and chattings, 
 quite forgot her for a time, afnd was dismayed 
 when she saw her sitting disconsolately by. 
 u Come, Signorina," she cried, u go down to the 
 bay. Here is Talila; she will guide you." 
 
 Mae looked up quickly at that. Talila, was 
 she here ? A few feet from her she saw an un- 
 couth woman, with that falling of the jaw 
 most imbeciles possess, and a vacancy in her 
 eyes. She had her hand raised and was swear- 
 ing at one of the children. " Talila," repeated 
 Mae, rubbing her eyes, and shivering, " but I 
 
162 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 thought Talila would be different. You said 
 she loved children, but this woman swears at 
 them." 
 
 u 0, dear, we all swear at them, but we love 
 them; you shall see how they follow her. 
 Talila, off with you and your babies." And the 
 next moment there was a general scamper of 
 brown children headed by this tall, vacant-look- 
 ing woman. " Take the lady to the sea," con- 
 tinued Lisetta. And Mae arose, as if in a dream, 
 and followed them. 
 
 The half-clad children of the sun ran before 
 her as she had dreamed they would; flowers 
 sprang up along the way, but she did not stop 
 to pluck a single bud or turn to look at any- 
 thing. She wandered on in an awful sort of 
 fright and came at length to the water's edge. 
 Here there were row-boats lying at anchor, into 
 which the children clambered. Mae stepped 
 into one of them and sat down in the stern, 
 and looked about. All was as she had planned. 
 Her day of heaven was here. She tried to be 
 brave. 0, she tried very hard. She wanted to 
 love and enjoy the sea, and think beautiful 
 thoughts. She roused a little and stretched 
 herself out to catch the sunbeams in her eyes, 
 as she had said she would, How warm they 
 
MAE MADDEN. 163 
 
 were. An umbrella would be a luxury and a 
 book! But these belonged to the world she had 
 left so far behind her. The dirty children 
 babbled a strange to ague; the water around the 
 boat, by the shore, was covered with a scum, 
 and alas! alas! the land of her desire was far- 
 ther off than ever. Then she remembered that 
 Norman Mann had once said: "If you ever do 
 disappear I shall know where to look for you." 
 Would he think of it now? Would he come 
 for her? It he had only come last night, 
 and would drive by now to Sorrento. He 
 would be here soon if he had. Would she 
 call him loudly or shrink down in the boat 
 and hide her face in her hands till she knew 
 he was a long way past? The rest of them 
 would not know where to look for her. They 
 did not know anything about Lisetta, and she 
 had promised not to tell even the padrona. 
 (Faithless Lisetta!) But of course Norman 
 wouldn't come for her, after what he had said 
 at the Capitol. That was what finally drove her 
 away. How unlike him it did seem to speak of 
 her in that way to Eric. She thought over his 
 words, and as she did so she seemed to see her 
 mistake, and grasp his meaning. 
 
 She sprang up in the boat. " It was the other 
 
164 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 girl Miss Rae he was speaking of. Oh, oh, 
 oh and now it is too late. He will hate me 
 always." 
 
 As she stood there, a carriage rolled by. 
 Some one looked out. " 0, mamma," said a 
 young voice in English, " look at that pretty 
 little peasant," and a kid-gloved hand was 
 stretched through the open window to spatter 
 a shower of base coin toward her. It was 
 terrible! The children sprang for it, and, fight- 
 ing and laughing, ran homewards with the 
 dreadful Talila. The parti-colored picturesque 
 dress had been a joy to Mae. Now she longed 
 to tear it off and die die! No, she was afraid 
 to die. She would have to live, and she didn't 
 know how, and she laughed a bitter sort of 
 laugh. 
 
 There was a sound of horses' feet again. The 
 road lay almost close to the shore just here. 
 A low exclamation, a vault from his horse, 
 which was speedily cared for by a dozen boys 
 near at hand, and before Mae knew it, the offi- 
 cer was beside her once more. 
 
 0, how beautiful it was to see some one from 
 the world, fresh, and clean, and fair. Mae 
 gazed at him in delight, and sprang up warmly, 
 holding out both her hot hands, u How is 
 
MAE MADDEN. 165 
 
 Heaven?" asked Bero, as he raised the white 
 fingers to his lips. 
 
 " That is not the custom with us," said Mae, 
 withdrawing her hand. 
 
 " But what is custom in Heaven ?" he laughed. 
 " Can't we do as we please in our Heaven, Sig- 
 norina?" 
 
 " This isn't our Heaven, and I don't please. 
 0, how could you let me come to this dreadful 
 place. Did you know how awful it would be?" 
 
 u Shall I tell you why I said nothing? Let 
 me row you away from all this," and he began 
 to untie the boat. 
 
 "When did you come?" asked Mae. 
 
 " I left Rome last night, reached Naples this 
 morning, and here I am as soon as possible, 
 Signorina." 
 
 Mae felt herself gradually yielding to the spell 
 of this man's soft power. She had grown strange- 
 ly quiet and passive, and she folded her hands and 
 looked off seawards in a not unhappy way. She 
 seemed to be some one else in a strange dream. 
 
 u Are you glad I came?" asked Bero, as he 
 jumped into the boat and sat down opposite her. 
 Mae did not reply. She had almost lost the 
 power of speech. She only smiled feebly and 
 faintly. Bero had never seen her thus before, 
 
166 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 but he realized dimly that it was he who had 
 changed her, and the sense of his own power 
 excited him the more. He bent his proud head 
 and flashed his beautiful eyes as he lifted the 
 oars to the locks, and silently pulled out toward 
 the bay. 
 
 As he rowed he gazed fixedly at her, and the 
 frightened, puzzled child could not turn her 
 eyes from his. His look grew softer and ten- 
 derer, his head bent towards her, the oars moved 
 slower and slower and at last stopped impercept- 
 ibly. Still the man gazed passionately, claim- 
 ingly, and the girl breathed harder and let her 
 eyes rest on his, as if he had been a wondrous, 
 charming serpent, and she a little, unresisting 
 dove. Then he spoke. 
 
 His words were so low, it seemed as if his eyes 
 had found voice; his words were so caressing, it 
 seemed as if they changed to kisses as they fell. 
 " Listen, 11 he said, softly, and drew up his drip- 
 ping oars and let the boat drift " Listen. This 
 is not our Heaven, but I know a villa by the 
 sea. There are hills and woods about it; flowers, 
 fruits, and in the day, sunshine, at .night, moon- 
 light and music; drives, and walks, and vines, 
 and arbors. Could you find there your Heaven 
 with me? May I take you to my villa?" 
 
MAE MADDEN. 167 
 
 When he ceased, his words dropped slowly 
 into silence, and Mae still gazed at him. She 
 saw him come nearer to her, with his eyes fixed 
 on hers; she saw his hand leave the oar and 
 move slowly toward hers, but she was motion- 
 less, looking at the picture he had painted her 
 of life the cloudless days, moonlit nights 
 the villa by the sea the. glowing Piedmontese. 
 Her eyelids trembled, her pulse beat. 
 
 Could she take that villa for her home? That 
 man for her husband? She had half thought 
 till now in soft luxurious Italian, but fc my home ' 
 and ' my husband ' said themselves to her in 1ier 
 own mother tongue. She gave a long shiver, 
 and pulled her eyes from his. It was like wak- 
 ing from a dream. u No oh, no; take me 
 home," she gasped, and turned toward the 
 shore, where, erect, with folded arms and head 
 bared, stood Norman Mann. 
 
 The Italian bit his lip, and said something 
 under his breath, but he took the oars and 
 pulled ashore. Mae turned her eyes downward 
 and felt the color creep up, up into her cheeks. " 
 It seemed eternity. The boa.t was Charon's, 
 and she was drifting to her fate. Norman 
 Mann stood like a statue. The wind moved his 
 hair over his forehead, and once Mae saw him 
 
168 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 toss the unruly locks back in a familiar way he 
 had. She did not know why, but the tears half 
 came to her eyes as he did it. He stood as firm 
 and hard and still as a New England rock, 
 while the Italian swayed lithely as he pulled 
 the oars, with the curve and motion of a slid- 
 ing, slippery stream. 
 
 The boat came safely ashore. The Pied- 
 montese helped her to land, and the three stood 
 silent; but Mae under all her shame felt con- 
 tent to be near Norman. His voice broke the 
 quiet, quick and clear. u Are you married? 11 he 
 asked. 
 
 " I! married! What do you what can he 
 mean?" 
 
 u Why is this man here, then?" 
 
 Mae stood an instant so still that the heavy 
 breaths of the two men were distinctly audible, 
 the passionate boundings of Bero's pulse, the 
 long, deep throbs of Norman's heart. The 
 officer stepped toward her. Norman stood un- 
 moved. The Italian's eye wandered restlessly, 
 his hand fell to his sword. Norman's arms 
 were folded, and his face set. 
 
 Mae looked at one, then at the other, perplex- 
 edly. Then she understood. Like lightning, a 
 terrible temptation flashed into her mind. The 
 
MAE MADDEN. 169 
 
 Italian loved her, would shield, protect, honor 
 her. Norman must hate her, would always 
 despise her. Should she lift her little weak 
 woman's hand and place it in the man's hand 
 ready to claim it, or stand still and be crushed 
 by that other hand there? 
 
 Ah! she could not do it. She tried once. 
 She held out weakly her right hand toward 
 Bero; but the left stretched itself involuntarily 
 to Norman. Then the two met in each other's 
 pitiful clasp over her bent head, and with a 
 low wailing cry she fell in a little heap on the 
 sand. 
 
 When she opened her eyes, they were both 
 bending over her. " Take me home," she 
 gasped to Norman. He glared at the officer. 
 u Gro!" he said. Bero put his hand to his sword. 
 Mae sprang up. " No," she said, gently, " no, 
 my friend, for you have always been kind and 
 friendly to me. Pray go." Bero was touched 
 by this. This little girl had taken only good 
 from him, after all, sympathy and friendliness. 
 Norman was touched also with the same 
 thought. Then the officer smiled pleasantly. 
 He shrugged his shoulders slightly, regretfully, 
 and bowed and rode away. And so the clink- 
 ing spurs and yellow moustaches and amorous 
 eyes vanished from Mae's sight. 
 
170 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 As he rode off he was somewhat sorrowful; 
 but he took a picture from his pocket and 
 looked at it. " She'll be glad to welcome me 
 back again," he said to himself, pleasantly, u and 
 she belongs to my own land. This little for- 
 eigner might have pined for her own home, by 
 and by." Then he sighed and shook his head. 
 "Alas! this little stranger will dance before 
 you often, still!" and he touched his eyes; "but 
 I will put you back in your place here, now." 
 This he said, looking at Lillia's picture and 
 with his hand on his heart. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AKE me home," said Mae again im- 
 ploringly. u Not back there," as Nor- 
 man drew her hand through his arm 
 and started for the hut, " no, not 
 even for a minute." 
 
 u Sit here then," he replied qiiiBtly, " while 
 I arrange it with the woman," and he walked 
 quickly away. Mae watched him till he entered 
 the low doorway, in a sort of subdued, glorified 
 happiness, that would break out over her shame 
 and fear. She was afraid he would hate her, at 
 least she told herself so, but in reality, every- 
 thing and everybody and every place were fast 
 fading out of this eager little mind. She and 
 Norman were together, and she could not help 
 being content. There was a certain joy in her 
 weakness and shame, though they were genuine 
 and kept her hushed and silent. 
 
 Poor Lisetta was very much frightened, but 
 told her story to this angry stranger with true 
 Southern palaver. She said the little lady 
 loved Italy so, and wanted to be a peasant, and 
 insisted she would run away quite by herself if 
 11 
 
172 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 Lisetta would not take her, and so she con- 
 sented, knowing she could, through the pa- 
 drona, send word to the friends. 
 
 " And the man ? " asked Norman, impatiently. 
 
 "What man? 0, the officer. He just rode 
 down this morning for a morning call. I 
 never saw him before." 
 
 A great weight, as large as the Piedmontese, 
 fell from Norman's heart then, and he scattered 
 money among the children recklessly and 
 ordered up the donkey, and smiled on the 
 amazed Lisetta all in the same breath, and went 
 back to help Mae into the wagon with the light- 
 est kind of a heart. It was a strange ride they 
 took back to Castellamare. I think they both 
 wished the world could stand still once more. 
 When they had arrived at the station they 
 found the next train to Naples was not due for 
 two hours. Norman left Mae in the waiting- 
 room for a time. Through the window she 
 watched Gaetano and the donkey start home- 
 ward, with a great sigh of relief. She had 
 time while she was sitting to think, but her 
 head was in too great a whirl. She could only 
 feel sorry and ashamed and meek and happy, all 
 mixed together. The sensation was odd. 
 
 " I have telegraphed Eric that we would start 
 
MAE MADDEN. 173 
 
 home by the next train, that you had only been 
 off for a frolic. I hope we can buy a water- 
 proof or shawl and a hat in Naples for you?" 
 
 " Yes," said Mae, meekly, " I have my water- 
 proof here. I think I will put it on now, please," 
 and she began nervously to untie the shawl 
 strap. Norman put her fingers gently aside, 
 and unbuckled it for her. He handed her the 
 long deep-blue cloak, which she put tightly 
 about her, drawing the hood over her head. 
 " You look like a nun," said Norman, smiling. 
 " I wish I were one," replied Mae, with a choke 
 in her throat. She was growing very poniten- 
 tial and softened. 
 
 "What shall we do now?" asked Mr. Mann. 
 " We have a long time to wait. If you feel like 
 walking, we can find a pleasanter spot than this." 
 "Go anywhere you please," replied Mae meekly. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" for Norman 
 had a verv amused expression in his brown eyes. 
 
 " I hardly recognize you. Not a trace of fight 
 so far, and it must be two hours since we met. 
 
 " Don't," said Mae, with her eyes down, so of 
 course he didn't, but the two just marched quietly 
 along back on the Sorrento road towards some 
 high rocks. They sat down behind these, with 
 their faces towards the sea, and were as thor- 
 
174: MAE MADDEN. 
 
 oughly hidden from view, as if they had been 
 quite alone in the world. 
 
 "I suppose they were frightened," asked Mae, 
 u at home at Rome, I mean.' 1 " Dreadfully, 1 ' re- 
 plied Norman, trying to be sober, but with the 
 glad ring in his voice still. " Edith was for drag- 
 ging the Tiber; she was sure you and the seven- 
 branched candlestick lay side by side. Mrs. 
 Jerrold searched your trunks and read all your 
 private papers, I am morally certain." Then 
 Norman stopped abruptly, and Mae drew the 
 long stiletto from her hair nervously and 
 played with it before she said, " And the 
 boys? 1 ' " Albert was very, very sad, but 
 reasonably sure you would be found. We all 
 feared the Italian, but Albert worked carefully, 
 and soon discovered that the officer was said to 
 be engaged to a young girl with whom he had 
 been seen the day after you left, and that gave 
 him courage, 11 then Normal* stopped again 
 abruptly. "And Eric?" "Eric sat down with 
 his face in his hands and cried, Miss Mae, and 
 said, l I've lost my sister, the very dearest little 
 sister in the world.' '' 
 
 " And you came and found me," said Mae, af- 
 ter a pause, wiping the tears from her eyes. 
 " Yes, thank God," said Norman. He was sober 
 
MAE MADDEN. 175 
 
 enough now. " Why did you do it?' 1 asked Mae, 
 " when I had been so naughty, and silly, and 
 unkind?" He came very near telling her the 
 reason as she looked up at him, but he did not, 
 for she dashed on, U 0! Mr. Mann, I have 
 been" 
 
 u Don't confess to me, Miss Mae. Leave all 
 of this till you get home to your own, who have 
 a right to your confessions and penitence. Never 
 mind what you have been, here you are, and 
 as I have only one more handkerchief and your 
 own looks as if it had been sea-bathing, you had 
 better dry your eyes and be jolly for the next 
 two hours." This was a precarious speech, but 
 Mae only laughed at it,and dried her eyes quickly. 
 " But I have one thing to say to you," she said, 
 "and please mayn't I?" 
 
 " You may say anything you please to me, of 
 course," replied this very magnanimous Nor- 
 man. 
 
 u It is not about the miserable past or 
 my doings, but it's about the future. I've said 
 good-bye to my dreams of life the floating and 
 waving and singing and dancing life that was 
 like iced champagne. I'd rather have cold 
 water, thank you, sir, for a steady drink, morn- 
 ing, noon and night. I'm going to be good, to 
 
176 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 read and study and grow restful," and Mae 
 folded her hands and looked off toward the sea. 
 u She's a witching child." thought Norman. 
 Then she raised her head. " I said it lightly 
 because I felt it deeply," she added, as if in re- 
 ply to his thought. " I am going to grow, if I 
 can, unselfish and sympathetic, and perhaps, 
 who knows, wise, and any way good." 
 
 " There is no need of giving up your cham- 
 pagne entirely. Give yourself a dinner party 
 now and then o' holidays. The world is full of 
 color and beauty, and poetry you love. All 
 study is full of it most of all it lives in 
 humanity." 
 
 " Well," said Mae, " aren't you glad I'm go- 
 ing to change so?" 
 
 " I'm glad you're going to give your soul a 
 chance. Your body has been putting it down 
 hard of late." 
 
 u It's but a weakling," said Mae, with a shake 
 of her head, " and I've hardly heard its whimp- 
 ers at all, but 0, Mr. Mann, if you could have 
 seen Talila she's dreadful." 
 
 u Who is Talila? and what has she to do with 
 your soul ?" 
 
 " 0, she's one of those Sorrento people," re- 
 plied Mae, as if she had lived there for years. 
 " I have so much to tell you: it will take ' 
 
MAE MADDEN. 177 
 
 u Years, I hope, dear. 1 ' The last word drop- 
 ped without his noticing it, but Mae caught 
 it and hid it in her heart. 
 
 u What made you think of coming for me?" 
 she asked, after a pause, during which Norman 
 had hummed a song as she had been writing 
 her name on the sand. They were quite on 
 the shore and only a narrow stretch of beach 
 separated them from the bay. u You said if 
 you ever came away, you would go to Sorrento, 
 and I knew you had a friend in the kitchen 
 who lived near Naples. So I searched for her 
 and the padrona, and, finding neither of them, 
 set Giovanni a babbling, and learned that the 
 woman Lisetta had left that morning for Sor- 
 rento. I told the boys I had a mere suspicion 
 that I would trace for them. So off I came 
 last night, and by stopping and enquiring at 
 every settlement, at last discovered you." 
 
 u This is my birth-day; I am twenty years 
 old," said Mae. u Why, what are you doing? " 
 For Norman had bent down to the sand also, 
 and had drawn a queer little figure there. 
 - u That is you when you were one year old," 
 be laughed, u and you could only crow and kick 
 your small feet, and smile now and then, and 
 cry the rest of the time." 
 
178 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 u That is about all I can do yet, 1 ' said Mae. 
 
 " Here comes number two," and he drew his 
 hand across the sand and smoothed the baby 
 image away, leaving in its place a round, sturdy 
 little creature, poised dangerously on one foot. 
 u You have walked alone, and you have called 
 your father's name, and you're a wonderful 
 child by this time." 
 
 u This is the three-year-old, white aprons and 
 curls, please observe. Now, you recite l Dick- 
 ery, dickery dock ' and 4 1 want to be an angel,' 
 and you have cut all your wisdom teeth." 
 
 "6, Mr. Mann, I haven't cut them yet. 
 Babies don't have them." 
 
 "Don't they? Well, you have other teeth 
 in their place, white and sharp but by this 
 time you are four years old." 
 
 u Ah, here I begin to remember. You draw 
 the pictures, and I'll describe myself. Four 
 years old! let me see I had a sled for Christ- 
 mas, and I used to eat green apples. That's all 
 I can remember; and five and six years old were 
 just the same." 
 
 " 0, no, I'm sure you went to church for the 
 first time somewhere along there; and isn't that 
 a noteworthy event ? I suppose all your 
 thoughts were of your button boots and your 
 new parasol ? " 
 
MAE MADDEN. 1J9 
 
 U I behaved beautifully, I know; mamma 
 says so; sat up like a lady, while you, were sleep- 
 ing, on that very same Sunday, off in some little 
 country church, I suppose." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder sleeping in my broth- 
 er's outgrown coat into the bargain, with the 
 sleeves dangling over my little brown hands." 
 
 " It doesn't seem as if. they could ever have 
 been very little, does it, Mr. Mann? " 
 
 Mr. Mann unfolded five fingers and a thumb 
 and surveyed them gravely for a moment. " It 
 is strange that this once measured three inches 
 by two and couldn't hit out any better than 
 your's could." 
 
 Mae had laid her hand on her knee and was 
 looking at it also in the most serious manner. 
 Now she doubled it into a small but very pug- 
 nacious looking fist, which she shook most en- 
 trancingly before the very eyes of the young 
 man by her side. The eyes turned such a pe- 
 culiar look upon her that she hastened to add: 
 " Go on with your dissolving views. It is num- 
 ber eight's turn next. You are the showman, 
 and I am interested spectator." 
 
 " You insist upon describing my pictures, so 
 I think you are properly first assistant to the 
 grand panorama. Here's eight-year-old. Try 
 your powers on her." 
 
180 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 " Let me see. 0, then I read all the while, 
 the 4 Fairehild Family ' and l Anna Ross,' and I 
 used to wear my hair in very smooth braids, I 
 remember. I was ever so good." 
 
 " Impossible; you must have forgotten," sug- 
 gested Norman. "You surely whispered in 
 school and committed similar dreadful crimes. 
 Poor little prig." 
 
 "No, don't," plead Mae; "please don't laugh 
 at the little girl me. I love to think of her as so 
 goody-goody. Last night," and Mae lowered 
 her voice, " I seemed to see little Mae Madden 
 kneeling down in the old nursery in her woolly 
 wrapper saying her prayers," and Mae brought 
 up on the prayers very abruptly, and bent over 
 toward the sand and began to draw hastily. 
 " Here comes nine-year-old Mae. Mr. Mann, 
 you may do the describing." 
 
 " 0, I suppose there were doll's parties, first 
 valentines, and rides with Albert in his buggy, 
 when you clung very tightly to the slight arm 
 of the carriage and smiled very bravely up in his 
 face. You must have been pretty then." 
 
 " No, I was dreadfully ugly. I had broken 
 out two teeth climbing a stone wall." 
 
 " You had stopped being good? " 
 
 " Yes, that only lasted a little bit of a time." 
 
MAE MADDEN. 181 
 
 " Miss Mae, I'm sure you were never ugly, 
 but naughty and silly, I dare say. Kept a 
 diary now, didn't you?" 
 
 " Yes, and went to sleep with Eliza Cooke's 
 poems under my pillow every night, and my 
 finger holding the book open at some such 
 thrilling verse as this: 
 
 'Say on that I'm over romantic 
 
 In loving the wild and the free, 
 But the waves of the dashing Atlantic, 
 
 The Alps and the eagle for me.' " 
 
 " Did you wear your hair plaited when you 
 were ten years old?" enquired Norman, in- 
 tensely busy with another drawing. 
 
 u no; I didn't do anything when I was ten 
 years old but get mad and make up with my 
 two dearest friends." 
 
 " One of whom was your dearest friend one- 
 half of the time and the other the rest of it, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Don't be satirical, sir. I had a lover when 
 I was eleven; I used to skate with him and 
 write him little notes, folded very queerly." 
 
 " Why do you draw twelve and thirteen with 
 their heads down?" asked Mae, after a moment. 
 
 u Because they read so much; everything they 
 
182 MAE MADDKN. 
 
 can get hold of, including, possibly, a very 
 revised edition of l Arabian Nights' ? " 
 
 " Yes, 1 ' laughed Mae, " and my first novel, 
 'Villette.'" 
 
 u You go to a play for the first time now," 
 suggested Norman. u How you clasp your 
 hands and wink your eyes and bite your lips! 
 And next day, in front of your mother's pier- 
 glass, how you scream c 0, my love,' and gasp 
 and tumble over in a heap in your brown calico, 
 as the grand lady did the night before, in her 
 pink silk." 
 
 " Brown calico, indeed! I never condescended 
 to die in my own clothes, let me assure you. 
 The garret was overhauled, and had been since 
 I was a mere baby, for effective, sweeping gar- 
 ments. Let us hurry along over fourteen and 
 fifteen. I was sentimental and tried to be so 
 young-ladyish then. I used to read history 
 with Albert, and always put on both my gloves 
 when I started out, and had great horror of 
 girls who talked loud in the street. I learned to 
 make bread, and shirt bosoms, and such things." 
 
 "Well, here you are in a long dress, Miss 
 Sweet Sixteen. I remember you home from 
 boarding school on a vacation." 
 
 "What did you think of me?" asked Mae, 
 
MAE MADDEN. 183 
 
 u didn't we have a nice time that summer? 0, 
 how silly I was!" 
 
 She hurried on, because the eyes had given 
 her that peculiar look again, which put her 
 heart in a tremble. u I did have a beautiful time 
 at boarding school," she continued, " the 
 darlingest principal and such girls." 
 
 u Then I suppose you wrote a salutatory in for- 
 lorn rhyme to end off with," laughed Norman, 
 " and read it, all arrayed in white, in a trembling 
 voice, and everybody applauded, and even old 
 Judge Seymour admired it, while you were read- 
 ing, with your pink cheeks and trembling hands 
 and quivering voice." 
 
 "Abominable! I didn't have the salutatory, 
 and the girl who did, read a superb one, as strong 
 and masculine 
 
 " Then the Judge went 1 o sleep, I'm sure," 
 declared Norman. 
 
 ;t Well," said Mae, u you are leaving out two 
 years," for Norman had leaned back against the 
 rock with his arms folded. 
 
 " By and by," said Norman, " we all come 
 off to Europe, and some of as go through the 
 heart-ache, don't we?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Mae, softly. 
 
 u But come out ahead one day at Sorrento, 
 
184 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 perhaps?" asked Norman. To which Mae 
 made no direct reply. 
 
 " AIL the Mae Maddens have faded away," she 
 said, looking down at the sand again. " The tide 
 is rising." And she walked forward to the 
 ripples of water, and then came slowly back 
 and stood before Norman seriously. He 
 laughed. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Mann," said Mae, " I have been 
 so very, very wicked." 
 
 The dreadful Mr. Mann only laughed again. 
 
 " You act as if it were all a joke. I never 
 saw you so merry before." 
 
 "I have never been as happy before, in my 
 life." 
 
 '" Why?" asked Mae, in a low voice. 
 
 " Because I have found you," he answered 
 earnestly, and before she knew it Mae was 
 lifted in the strong, manly arms, her pink 
 cheek close to Norman's brown one, and his 
 lips on hers. She leaned her face against his 
 and clung tightly to him. 
 
 11 0, Mr. Norman Mann," she said, '* do you 
 really want me as much as I do you?" 
 
 And Norman, still holding her tightly, bent 
 his hand, with hers clasped in it, to the sand, 
 
MAE MADDEN. 185 
 
 and after the Mae Madden, he wrote another 
 name, so that it read: 
 
 MAE MADDEN MANN. 
 
 Then he said a great many, many things, all 
 beginning with that electric, wonderful little 
 possessive pronoun " my," of which he had dis- 
 coursed formerly, and he held her close all the 
 while, and they missed the next train for 
 Naples. 
 
 The gay peasant costume fell about the girfs 
 round lithe form like the luxuriant skin of some 
 richly marked animal; but out of her eyes 
 looked a woman's tender, loving, earnest soul. 
 Norman Mann had saved her. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DITH was quietly married to Albert 
 at Easter time, in the English Chapel 
 at Florence. The event was hastened 
 by the sudden appearance of Mae's 
 parents, who set sail soon after hearing of 
 the Sorrento escapade and the embryonic 
 engagement,which awaited their sanction before 
 being announced. Everything was beautifully 
 smooth at last. Edith and Albert left the day 
 of their marriage for Munich, and later, Mrs. 
 Jerrold was to settle down with them at Tue- 
 bingen. The rest of the party were to sum- 
 mer in Switzerland; then came fall, and then 
 -what? 
 
 Norman thought he knew, and Mae said she 
 thought he didn't, but this young woman was 
 losing half her character for willfulness, and 
 Norman was growing into a perfect tyrant, so 
 far as his rights were concerned. Easter is a 
 season of marriages. Mae read in a Roman 
 paper the betrothal announcement of the Sig- 
 nor Bero and Signorina Lillia Taria. " I would 
 like to send them a real beautiful present, 1 ' said 
 
MAM MADDEN. 187 
 
 she, and Norman did not say no. So these two 
 hunted all over Florence, and at length, in the 
 studio of a certain not unknown Florentine, 
 they discovered the very gift Mae desired a 
 picture of a young Italian soldier, bringing 
 home his bride to his own people. There was 
 the aged mother, proud and happy, waiting to 
 bid the dark-eyed girl welcome. " She has a 
 real 'old Nokomis ' air, 1 ' laughed Mae. u I 
 know she would have told her son not to seek 
 l a stranger whom he knew not.' " The dis- 
 tant olive-colored hillsides, the splashing foun- 
 tain near at hand, each face, and even the thick 
 strong sunshine seemed to bear a tiny stamp 
 with Italy graven on it. " The name of the 
 picture is exactly right," said Mae. Under the 
 painting were these words: " Italia Our Home." 
 Norman would hardly have been human if he 
 had not cast a quick glance at her as she stood 
 thoughtfully before the picture. Mae was 
 almost as good as an Italian for involuntary 
 posing. She had made a tableau of herself 
 now, with one hand at her eyes to shade them 
 from the glare of the sun that fell fiercely 
 through the window, her head half on one side, 
 and a bit of drapery, of lace or soft silk, tight 
 around her white throat. She felt Nor- 
 
188 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 man's glance, and looked up quickly, and 
 smiled and shook her head: "No, Italy is not 
 my home, although I love it so well. There is 
 a certain wide old doorway not many miles 
 from New York, and the hills around it, and 
 the great river before it, and the people in it, 
 all belong together, too. That's where we be- 
 long, Norman, in America, our home," and 
 Mae struck a grand final pose with her hands 
 clasped ecstatically, and her eyes flashing in 
 the true Goddess of Liberty style. 
 
 u Yes, I believe we do, Mae; I am almost 
 anxious to get back and begin work in that 
 young, eager country." 
 
 " And so am I," said Mae. 
 
 Norman laughed. " To think of your coming 
 down to workv you yoi5ng butterfly." 
 
 "It is what we all have to come to, isn't it? 
 unless we go to that creature that finds some 
 mischief still for idle hands to do. I don't ex- 
 pect to come to stone-cutting or cattle-driving, 
 but I do expect to settle down into a tolerable 
 -housewifely little woman, and " 
 
 " And look after me." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so and myself, and prob- 
 ably a sewing-class and the cook's lame son. 
 
MAE MADDEN. 189 
 
 Heigh-ho-hum ! What a pity it is, that it is 
 so uninteresting to be good." 1 ' 
 
 u How do you know?" 
 
 " Don't be saucy. I do know, perfectly well, 
 that Mae Madden, naughty, idle, and silly, may 
 be, after all, not so stupid; but get me good, 
 industrious and wise, and it will take all of my 
 time when I'm not asleep to keep so. No, 
 there'll be nothing to say about me any more. 
 I'll be as humdrum as " 
 
 u As I am." 
 
 u You why Norman, are you humdrum?" 
 
 u Of course I am, dreadfully humdrum. If 
 you and I were in a story-book, you would have 
 ten pages to my one, to keep the reader awake. 
 But then, story-books aren't the end of life. 
 Suppose you, Mae Madden, have been odd, full 
 of variety, ready to twist common occurrences 
 into something startling and romantic, have 
 you been happy? Haven't you been restless 
 and discontented? Now, can't you, grown 
 humdrum and good, be very happy and 
 contented and joyful, even if the sun rises 
 on just about the same Mondays and Tuesdays 
 and Wednesdays, the year round? You will 
 not do for a story-book then, but won't you do 
 better for life? And, after all, a lively mur- 
 
190 MAE MADDEN. 
 
 derer is a great deal more sensational than you 
 could ever be." 
 
 "Even when I ran away?" 
 
 u Yes. Now, you see, I have been humdrum 
 again, and half preached a sermon." 
 
 " All right, sir; so long as you take me for a 
 text, you may preach as you want to, and by 
 and by, I dare say, I shall agree with you." 
 
 " It would have been a great deal more inter- 
 esting if you had married that Italian." 
 
 " How do you know I could have married that 
 Italian, my lord? He is going to marry a girl 
 as much more beautiful than I am as as Bero 
 himself is than you and yet I would rather 
 have you. And now, don't you dare look at me 
 in that way. I'll never say another nice thing 
 to you if you do. This artist will think we 
 are" 
 
 "Lovers, my dear. And aren't we?" 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Ten days later Norman entered with a letter 
 for Mae. u Read it to me," she said, throwing 
 back the blinds and leaning her elbows on the 
 window-cushion. 
 
 u It is from Lillia. Would you rather read it 
 yourself?" " 0, no." So Norman read what 
 Lillia had written in her pretty broken English: 
 
MAE MADDEN. 191 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss MAE : Thank you of all my 
 heart for your so lovely gift. I have had so little home 
 since long, long ago my mother died, and now I am to 
 have one as the maid in the picture has. We will 
 marry the fifth day of May at five o'clock, and will 
 wish you to be there. Don't forget me. 
 
 LILLIA." 
 
 " Signer Bero has added a postscript, Mae, 
 which you can translate better than I." And 
 Norman handed her the letter. Mae translated 
 it thus : 
 
 "Did you know all that the picture would say to me, 
 Siguorina? Receive my thanks for it, too, and believe 
 I shall always live worthy of my Italy, my wife and 
 friends that I see in the picture, and of another friend 
 who lives' so far away, whom I shall never see again, if 
 I have such a friend. Think of my beautiful Lillia on 
 our wedding day. We shall be married at St. Andrea's, 
 at vesper time. 
 
 BERO." 
 
 u And this is the day," said Mae, dropping the 
 note. 
 
 " And the very hour, allowing the bride and 
 the sun a few minutes each," added Norman, 
 glancing at the clock. 
 
 They gaze quietly out of the window of their 
 lodgings on the Borgo Ognissante, but Mae sees 
 far away beyond the Arno, into the church of 
 St. Andrea, music, and pomp, and beautiful 
 
192 -MAE MADDEN. 
 
 ceremony, and before the altar, a woman in her 
 bridal robes, with heavily figured lace falling 
 over her black hair and white forehead, and 
 against her soft cheeks and shoulders. Her 
 great brown eyes have thrown away the mist of 
 sadness for a luminous wedding veil of joy, and 
 she is Lillia, and by her side, erect, proud, glori- 
 ous, with a lingering ray of light falling on his 
 golden head, is her happy husband, Bero. They 
 stand before the altar of St. Andrea's. u God 
 bless you," says Mae aloud. Then her gaze 
 wanders back to the coral and mosaic shops be- 
 low in the street, and up across to the opposite 
 window, where along-haired, brown-moust ached, 
 brown-eyed man leans, puffing smoke from his 
 curved lips, and holding his cigarette in his slen- 
 der fingers. She meets his gaze now, as she has 
 met it before. " He is wondering what life will 
 bring to these two young people, I fancy," says ' 
 Mae. 
 
 U 0ur own wedding-day, Mae," Norman replies; 
 and they both forget all about Lillia, and Bero, 
 and the stranger, and suddenly leave the win- 
 dow. The long-haired man puffs his cigar in a 
 little loneliness, and wishes that wedding bells 
 might ring for his empty heart too. 
 
 THE END. 
 
CTTJST ZPTJIBILjISHCIEID- 
 
 GRAZIELLA: 
 
 A. Story of Italian, 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE. 
 
 B3T Ta-2ao.es IB. Z2.-u.oa.3a.iozx. 
 
 Small quarto, 232 pages, red-line, tinted paper, 
 full-gilt, uniform with holiday edition of 
 "Memories." Price, - - - - $2.00 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
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 honest and truthful confession. 1 " Interior. 
 
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 11 The story is beautifully told, with the grace and fascination 
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 "No words can do full justice to the tender beauty and exquisite 
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 " ' Graziella 1 is full of the simple power that has made Hans 
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 jewels, aud the latter lose by being torn from it. * * * 
 
 It is pure literature, a perfect story couched in perfect words. 
 The sentences have the rhythm and flow, the sweetness and 
 tender fancy of the original. ****** 
 
 k The publishers have not been behindhand in their part of the 
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 lished, and it should stand side by side with that on the shelves 
 of every lover of pure, strong thoughts put in pure, strong words. 
 k (jraziella 1 is a book to be loved. 1 ' Tribune. 
 
 Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price, by 
 the publishers, 
 
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 Chicago. 
 
Edition 
 
 MEMORIES : 
 
 Ji StOT>y Of GreTTTLCLTL 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF MAX MULLER. 
 
 G-eorgre UP. 
 
 Small quarto, 173 pages, red line, tinted paper, 
 
 full gilt; uniform with " Graziella." Price $2.00 
 The Same, 16mo., red edge. Price - - - $1.00 
 
 TESTIMONIALS. 
 
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 lacks only the harmonies of verse to make it one of the most 
 exquisite poems in the German language, is here reproduced in 
 an English costume of chaste and delicate beauty. 1 ' New York 
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 which that people is distinguished from all others. Seldom has 
 the dawn, the rise and the setting of the sun of passion been 
 depicted with such sympathetic insight and such sweetness and 
 refinement of color. 11 " Home Journal. 
 
 "This is one of the most charming little books we have ever 
 read. We know of only one other story to which we can compare 
 it the exquisite tale of Paul and Virginia, by Bernardin de 
 Saint Pierre. It were difficult indeed to say which of these two 
 little books is the more admirable. They are both gems of love- 
 stories, and those who are acquainted with the French one can 
 have no higher assurance of the excellence of the German than 
 that it is not its inferior in interest or poetic elevation. 1 ' 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price, 
 by the publishers, 
 
 JANSEN, McCLURG & CO., 
 
 Chicago.