Possibly the reason of this reserve lay in the fact that Mrs. Lindsay made Aurora the principal theme of her letters. Her triumphs, her beauty, her goodness, her admirers, her acts, her sayings, even her little whims, were all recounted. The lady was a good letter-writer. She wrote in a simple, self-colored way a clear narrative of their life in Venice, ignoring sentiment and reflections; yet the many little incidents and phrases which she set down were like so many touches with a full brush, and gave life to what she told. The duke remained in England but a short time. Robertino was perfectly contented, he wrote, and better without him. He crossed the ocean, and threw himself into the life of the New World, going east, west, north, and south, glancing at the agriculture, commerce, and manufactures of that prodigious country, which astonished him. The magnificent strength and vitality of it all braced him, waked him up, and dispelled his miasmas. Back to England; and, before they knew that he was there, off to Spain; and when they thought of him as in Spain, he had returned to England. And here at length he took a brief repose. He began to go into society, and wrote Mrs. Lindsay the names of persons he met and whom she might know. Among those whom he saw constantly was Lady Maud Churchill, whom he pronounced exquisitely beautiful. Mr. Edward Churchill was with them when the letters were brought, and Mrs. Lindsay read out this compliment to him. "Lady Maud is my cousin," he said. "She is a woman carved in alabaster." Mrs. Lindsay gave Aurora the letter to read when she went to her room, and she sat there by her window after having read it, the open sheet in her lap. "Exquisitely beautiful," she repeated, looking down at the words. "He will marry her. I am glad that he is going to marry an Englishwoman. She must be good, if she is like her cousin." She looked out at the bright April sunlight dreamily, and for a long time without stirring. She was considering if she had not better accept Mrs. Lindsay's invitation to accompany them to America in June. She would like to see that wonderful golden land where nobody is ragged and nobody poor, --to see its prairies and forests, its cities sprung up since yesterday, its wide, clean streets with trees in them, its people, unresting, truth-telling, generous and courageous, if not always polite. "Fancy a country where the people drink water!" exclaimed a Frenchman, on seeing water sold in the streets of Seville. "Fancy a nation where the people are for the most part truthful!" thought this Italian, sitting in the window of a Venetian palace and looking out into the Canal Grande. "I had better go," she said. "I shall never again have so good an opportunity. And I really do not know what else to do. There is nothing to keep me here."