More weary wandering without result followed, and so intent was she on the object of her search that the beauties of “Sunny Italy” were lost upon her. The weather was hot and enervating and Babette suggested that her mistress should go to Switzerland and rest before continuing her search. Alice consented, but when they reached Vienna she was too ill to proceed farther. Babette was at home in Vienna for she could speak German, and she soon learned that the Hospital of St. Stephen's would give her mistress the rest and medical treatment that her condition required--for she was on the verge of nervous prostration. The discomfort of travelling was not the cause of her physical break-down for Aunt Ella had told her “that nothing was too good for a traveller” and every comfort and convenience that money could supply had been hers. Her mental disquietude had produced the physical relapse. She had been so confident of the truth of her dreams, and that some power, she knew not what, but which she trusted implicitly, would lead her to her husband, that her disappointment was more than her strained nervous system could bear. After a week's rest, although unable to rise, she called Babette to her bedside. “I wish to send word to my aunt in England but I do not feel able to sit up and write. I will dictate, you can write, and I will sign it.” Then Babette wrote: “MY DEAR AUNT ELLA: Confession, they say, is good for the soul. My body is weak to-day and so Babette is writing my confession. I have been to Sicily and all over the southern part of Italy, but no success has come to me. If Quincy had been in one of those orange or lemon groves he could not have lived there for so many years; the work is too hard, and he was never used to manual labour. So, as soon as I am able, I am coming home. I will never trouble you with any more dreams. I believe, as you do, that they are products of imagination. I am not sick, only tired out, and naturally, at first, very much disheartened. I shall be with you very soon, never more to leave you.” ALICE. “P. S. As soon as I am able to take a drive I am going to view the attractions of this city--which Babette says is even more beautiful than Paris. I must see 'The Beautiful Blue Danube,' and I must hear Johann Strauss's orchestra. They will be the only happy memories of my fruitless journey.” CHAPTER XXIV “WE THREE” Nothing marred the pleasure of the trip on the _Gallia_ and young Quincy and Tom could not have been happier than they were when the great steamer made its way up the Mersey towards its Liverpool pier. A few hours only in the great bustling city and then they were off to find the house in which Tom's father was born and lived. It was near Chester, that modernized reminder of the old Roman days, and on their way to Fernborough Hall.