"Oh, no!" said Emilia seriously. "But I told him how happy the thought of going into the country made me, and that it was almost like going to Italy. He told me he would take me to Italy, if I liked. I could have knelt at his feet. Unfortunately his friends could not come. Still, I was to go, and dine, and float on the water, plucking flowers. I determined to fancy myself in Venice, which is the place my husband must take me to, when I am married to him. I will give him my whole body and soul for his love, when I am there!" Here the cornet was capable of articulate music for a moment, but it resolved itself into: "Well, well! Yes, go on!" "I took his arm this time. It gave me my first timid feeling that I remember, and he laughed at me, and drove it quite away, telling me his name: Augustus Frederick what was it? Augustus Frederick--it began with G something. O me! have I really forgotten? Christian names are always easier to remember. A captain he was--a riding one; just like you. I think you are all kind!" "Extremely," muttered the ironical cornet. "A.F.G.;--those are the initials on the handkerchief!" "They are!" cried Emilia. "It must have been his own handkerchief!" "You have achieved the discovery," quoth Wilfrid. "He dropped it there overnight, and found it just as you were passing in the morning." "That must be impossible," said Emilia, and dismissed the subject forthwith, in a feminine power of resolve to be blind to it. "I am afraid," she took up her narrative, "my father is sometimes really almost mad. He does such things! I had walked under this gentleman's umbrella to the bridge between the park and the gardens with the sheep, and beautiful flowers in beds. In an instant my father came up right in our faces. He caught hold of my left hand. I thought he wanted to shake it, for he imitates English ways at times, even with us at home, and shakes our hands when he comes in. But he swung me round. He stood looking angrily at this gentleman, and cried 'Yes! yes!' to every word he spoke. The gentleman bowed to me, and asked me to take his umbrella; but I was afraid to; and my father came to me,--oh, Madonna, think of what he did! I saw that his pockets were very big. He snatched out potatoes, and began throwing them as hard as he could throw them at the gentleman, and struck him with some of them. He threw nine large potatoes! I begged him to think of our dinner; but he cried "Yes! it is our dinner we give to your head, vagabond!" in his English. I could not help running up to the gentleman to beg for his pardon. He told me not to cry, and put some potatoes he had been picking up all into my hand. They were muddy, but he wiped them first; and he said it was not the first time he had stood fire, and then said good-bye; and I slipped the potatoes into my pocket immediately, thankful that they were not wasted. My father pulled me away roughly from the laughing and staring people on the bridge.