expedient which would direct the thoughts of anyone who might seek him into another direction. She sprang up, and was fully dressed and ready to begin the extraordinary piece of work she had in hand, before anyone else of the party had stirred. But what was she to do? Was she to go to him straight, without any further inquiry, without a pause, and say, Are you my brother Harry? or, You are my brother Harry! If by any chance he was not so, after all, he would think her mad. What was she to do? She sat down again at the window where she had sat for half the night. The sunshine was pouring in, growing every moment more brilliant, not like the temperate British sunshine which it is a pleasure in the early morning to bathe and bask in, but already blazing, slaying in its Italian force and fervour. She had to close the _persiani_, which she had herself thrown open in her restlessness on the previous night. When all the people of the hotel were in motion, and life fully astir, she went downstairs; but there was nothing to be done there, save to sit down once more and think it all over again. She had not been there long, however, when Lionel came into the room in search of a book; he had been restless too; but he started violently when he caught sight of her buried in a great chair, with her hands clasped in her lap. For the first moment he thought that she must have been there all night. “Lydia!” he cried, in great alarm, “what is the matter?” Then he added, hastily, “My nerves are entirely wrong, I think. You startled me so, as if you had been all night in that chair.” “Not in this chair,” said Liddy, willing, however, to have some credit of her sleepless night, “but almost the same. Cousin Lionel, I want advice very much. I am very lonely and very inexperienced to do anything so important by myself.” He came quickly and drew a chair close to her. She was excited physically by her vigil, and the tears were very near her eyes, which were brimming full when Lionel, much concerned and very tender and sympathetic, looked her in the face. He put out his hand to take hers with anxious solicitude; and Lydia did not resist. Her heart was so full, and she was so overburdened with this new thing, that the mere touch of a sympathetic hand was a consolation to her. The tears dropped out of her eyes like two drops of rain upon her dress, and then she looked at him and said, “I have found Harry,” with the tremor of a sob in her voice. “You have found----!” he was so startled that he did not know what to say in reply.