"Of course," she agreed; people called with much less excuse than this in Sirene. "We might do some sailing." She clapped her hands with such spontaneous pleasure of anticipation that Mr. Vibart remarked how easy it was to see that she had lived abroad. But almost before the echo of her pleasure had died away her eyes had filled with tears, for she was thinking how heartless it was of her to rejoice at the prospect of sailing when it was sailing that had caused her father's death. Anxious not to hurt Mr. Vibart's feelings, Jasmine began to explain breathlessly why she was looking so sad. The young man was silent for a minute when she stopped; then, weighing his words in solemn deliberation, he said: "And, of course, that's why you're wearing black." Jasmine nodded. "I've brought with me all that were left of father's pictures. For presents, you know." She sighed. "I know," said the young man wisely. He had in his own valise a cigar-holder for Sir John Vibart, the expense of procuring which he hoped would be more than covered by a parting cheque. "And I should like to show them to you," Jasmine went on. "Perhaps we could get one out and look at it in the train." "Hadn't we better wait until I come and call?" he suggested. "It's not fair to look at things in the train. Trains wobble so, don't they?" Conversation about Sholto Grant's pictures passed easily into conversation about Jasmine's mother, because nearly all the pictures had been of her. "She was a beautiful _contadina_, you know," Jasmine shyly told him. Mr. Vibart, who supposed that her shyness was due to an attempt to avoid giving an impression of snobbishness in thus announcing the nobility of her ancestry, asked of what she was _contadina_. Jasmine, delighted at his mistake, laughed gaily. "_Contadina_ means country girl. Her name was Gelsomina, and she was the most beautiful girl in the island. Everybody wanted to paint her." Mr. Vibart, struggling in the gulf between a baronet's niece and an artist's model had nothing to say, but he made up his mind to ask his uncle something about Italy. It was always difficult to find anything to talk about with the old gentleman; Italy as a topic ought to last through the better part of two bottles of Burgundy. "And what's your name?" he asked at last. "I was called after my mother." "Oh, you were? Well, would you mind telling me your mother's name again, because I lost the last dozen letters?" "Gelsomina--only I was always called Jasmine, which is the English for it." As she spoke, all the bells in York began to ring at once, from the mastiff booming in York Minster to the rusty little cur yapping in a Methodist chapel close to where they were sitting, and with such gathering insistence in their clamour as to destroy the pleasure of these sunlit reminiscences.