"But indeed, dear Grannie, _that_ could not be meant unkindly," urged Vera; for this offender was her favourite aunt, Lady Okehampton, who had been kind to her. "Not meant? What could it mean but a sneer at my poverty?" "I know Aunt Mildred wouldn't knowingly wound you." "Don't contradict, Vera. I know my nephew's wife--a snob to the tip of her nails. She feels sure San Marco must be just the place for us--'so pretty and so quiet, and so inexpensive.' She _dared_ not say cheap. And she does not wonder that I have stayed longer than I talked about staying when I left London." Lady Felicia had remained in the dull Hôtel des Anglais six weeks beyond her original idea--six weeks longer than the London doctor had insisted upon; she had stayed into the celestial light of an Italian April, to the delight of Vera, who had thus enjoyed a new life with her new friend. She was not frivolous in her attachments, or ready to fall in love with new faces; but, in sober truth, she had never before had the chance of such a friendship--a girl of her own age, highly cultivated, attractive, and sympathetically eager to give her the affection of a sister. It would have been too cruel if Grannie's predetermination to leave Italy in the first week of March had cut short that lovely friendship. Happily Grannie had found out that March in London might be more perilous for her bronchial tubes than December; and had made a good bargain with the rapacious Canincio, since several of his spinsters and widows were leaving him. It was the third day after Giulia's fatal attack that Miss Thompson came to the upper floor to summon Vera to the sick room. "The dear child has been pining to see you ever since yesterday morning, when she rallied a little. She has written your name on her slate again and again, but the doctor was afraid she would excite herself, and perhaps try to talk. She has promised to be quite calm, and not to speak--and you must be very, very quiet, dear, and make no fuss. You can just sit by her bedside for a little while and hold her hand; but above all you must not cry--any agitation might be fatal." "Is there no hope--no hope?" Vera asked piteously. "No, my dear. It is a question of hours." Giulia's room was so full of flowers that it looked already like a _chapelle ardente_. Sinking slowly, surely, down into the darkness of the grave, she was still surrounded with brightness and beauty. Windows and shutters were open to the sky and the sun, and the blue plane of the sea showed far away melting into the purple horizon. Her three dogs were on the bed, Jane Seymour nestling against her arm, the other two lying at her feet. They were transformed creatures. No impetuous barking or restless jumping about. The wistful eyes gazed at the face they loved, the silken ears drooped over the silken coverlet, the fringed paws lay still. The dogs knew.