“It may be home,” said Harry, with a roused and almost irritated tone; “but I shall never see it again. Home has so many meanings. I shall say presently I am going home, and I shall mean my appartamento--as Paolo calls it--not very much of a home,” he said, with a sharp laugh. “Isn’t it? I say home, too, when I speak of England; but I shall never see it. Do you know I am never to be allowed to go to England, Mr. Oliver? That makes me like to hear everything about it. Then you and I are the same in that; but you will change your mind.” “You are much more likely to change your mind,” said Harry. “I--have good reason----” “And do you think I have not good reason too? When my mother went there, she died.” “She might have died anywhere,” Harry said. “It is harsh of you to say so. Yes, to be sure she might have died anywhere: but they say it is so cold in England,” said Rita, with a little shiver; the night air seemed all at once to have grown chilly. She looked at the big window close to her and shivered again. Harry got up and closed it without a word. “It is cold, when you expect it to be cold,” said Harry; “that is pretty often, to be sure: but it does not take you in an underhand way like this. In England it is all above-board; it blows right in your face, it does not steal in like _that_ behind your back and chill you. Things are honest at home. I think I could take you all over England, and you would get no harm.” “Could you?” said Rita eagerly; “do you know a way? but how then, Mr. Oliver? tell me, do you know a way?” “It would be just to take care of you,” said Harry, with a blush. “I know _that_ way. I should understand that you wanted taking care of, and I would take care of you. For my part, I should not be a bit afraid.” Rita did not notice the blush on his face. The desire of her heart was to go to England, and this made her think. She had the credulity of her birthplace about wonderful elixirs and miraculous ways of doing a dangerous thing. She looked at him dreamily, yet eagerly, with her great eyes. “But _how_ should you do it?” she repeated, “Mr. Oliver; if there is some particular way, will you tell me? For if you only knew--if you could only know how I wish to go to England----!” “There is no particular way,” said Harry; “if I were ever to go back home, which I never shall--and if you were to go with me, which most likely you never would--then you should go, and no harm would happen to you; that is all I know.”