would have gone through fire and water for her little prince. He could get anything from his sister. All these women loved him dearly, and though he teased them from morning till night, he was fond of them. But he lavished his greatest affection on the little dog Cecco, who did not care a button about him. Cecco was undeniably supercilious, and spent most of his time in eluding his young master.

"Cecco! Cecco!" cried Master Fabian tumbling out into the happy morning air, which set his bright light hair flying. Cecco, who was just round the corner, pricked an ear and trotted off silently with a very high action of his little silky paws. He was bent on a private inquiry into some vastly important matter.

Old

"Fabian! little prince! little bad one!" cried the nurse Vittoria coming slowly in pursuit. Rosa seized the occasion for dropping work, and came nimbly out to help, or at least to talk. She indulged freely in talk and expressive pantomime. Out of an open window came the sound of a piano sweetly and slowly played. "How she makes the music, the little daughter!" exclaimed old Rosa cutting a caper to the sound. Vittoria nodded acquiescence and stopped to listen, straightway

forgetting her pursuit. Cynthia, with her thoughts only half busy with her playing, was recalling old melodies and smiling to herself. The day was lovely and full of tender influences. Up in his spacious study Mr Hugo Deane laid down his pen and allowed some troubled lines to appear on his forehead. He would not complain; but his wife, who was accustomed to read his face, laid aside her knitting and went softly down-stairs. “Cynthia, dear," she said, "your father is very busy. I think he is a little disturbed by the music. Would you mind, dear?" Cynthia nodded gravely, and closed the piano. She strolled out through the window and half closed her eyes as they met the delicious air. Surely it was the loveliest of Venetian springs. Her stepmother looked after her with her expression of distress intensified. "What a pity she does not think more of others!" she muttered shaking her meek head. Then she went back to her lord with a sigh and a keen feeling of self-reproach. Mrs Deane was always ready to blame herself for matters entirely beyond her control. Even if a day did not fulfil its early promise of fine weather, this lady felt guilty and could not meet the eye of her Hugo, who was peculiarly sensitive to atmospheric influences.

Cynthia never thinks of anybody but herself," said the historian fretfully, as his wife rejoined him. Had her cousin Stephen Aylward been present, he would have said to himself with his ready mocking criticism, that Cynthia never thought at all.

30

CHAPTER III.

"Yet I remember when I was in France,

Young gentlemen would be as sad as night
Only for wantonness."

His

STEPHEN AYLWARD came away from Lady Lappin's tea-party with a pleasant sense of success. unusual warmth and flow of words had not been wasted. He had got his way, as he generally contrived to get it in his dealings with Mr Andrew Fernlyn; and it was settled that Philip Lamond, friend and companion of his boyhood, was to be taught to paint and to be cured of his love-sickness by a single course of treatment. Stephen smiled a little, and called himself a fool for interfering in his friend's common experience. "Most people go through it like the measles," he said to himself. Mr Bonamy Playdell, who gave him a lift homeward in his gondola, had never been through it, though he was sentimental enough, especially after

Lady Lappin's muffins. He lay at his full length, which was not great, and in an attitude which only a tendency to corpulence prevented from being supremely graceful.

"A wonderful woman," said Mr Playdell softly, waving his hand backward at the Palazzo Belrotoli. "I could tell you a story," and his mouth curled with satisfaction. He had never been in love himself, but he warmed himself at other people's love affairs. He paused, and slightly smacked his lips. "Do you know about Tiribomba and '59?" and Bonamy launched himself gently on his anecdote.

Stephen, who knew the story, sat rather stiffly on his side of the gondola and regarded his companion with an air of amusement and distress. He was vexed with himself for being so intensely amused with all these people, who were so kind to him. Bonamy moreover gave him peculiar shocks and almost disgusted him with ease. Too much of the little gentleman's society, he sometimes thought, would drive him to African exploration or Abyssinian lion-hunting.

When the boat stopped lightly at his steps, the young man went quickly ashore, avoiding his comrade's fat hand while he thanked him for his kind