"Absurd! Rose Hatherbury is the one--if it's any one in Florence." "Oh, Rose is too young for him." "In years, yes. But Rose's heart can be any age she pleases. Alan isn't really old in the least; but he was born middle-aged; he is the essence of middle-age and mediocrity; one always knows beforehand what he will say, for it will simply be, on every occasion, the most polite and the most commonplace thing that could possibly be devised under the circumstances. How came you to ask him to stay to dinner?" "Felicia made me. Funny, wasn't it, to see Waddy hang on, hoping for an invitation too." "You might have given him one. It would have entertained Dorothy." "Well, to tell the truth, Laura, I am a little afraid of Waddy; he _is_ so handsome!" "She doesn't care for him." "She likes him." "Yes, as she likes a dozen more. If she has a fancy for one over another, it is, I think, for Owen Charrington," continued the mother. "She would have to live in England. But I dare say his people would take to her; they are very nice, you know--his people." "How can you talk so! Dorothy is thoroughly American; she would be wretched in England. When she marries--which I hope won't be for five or six years more--she must marry one of our own countrymen, of course. The idea!" "Very well; I've no objection. But in that case we must take her home again before long," said Laura North, rising. As she spoke she indulged in a stretch, with her long arms extended first horizontally, and then slowly raised until they were perpendicular above her head, the very finger-tips taking part in the satisfactory elongation. "How I wish _I_ could do that!" said Charlotte Tracy, enviously. "But you don't say 'Ye-ough' at the end, as you ought to." They put out the wax-candles and left the room together, Mrs. Tracy lighting the way with a Tuscan lamp, its long chains dangling. "By this time Felicia, 'delicately treading the clear pellucid air,' is going through the Porta Romana," she suggested. "Never in the world! She has taken him round by the Viale dei Colli; she won't let him off for two good hours yet," responded Mrs. North. II "On Thursday, January 8th, at the English church, Florence, by the Reverend J. Chaloner-Bouverie, Alan Mackenzie, to Dorothy, daughter of the late Captain Richard North, United States Navy."--_Galignani's Messenger_ of January 10, 1882. III It was St. Mark's eve again, April 24th, and again there were many visitors at Bellosguardo. Upon this occasion they were assembled at Belmonte, the villa with the old battlemented tower, where Mr. and Mrs. Alan Mackenzie were receiving their Florentine friends for the first time since their marriage; they had been travelling in Sicily and southern Italy through the winter months.