Mrs. Morton wrote a letter with traces of tears upon it, appealing to her brother-in-law to assist her as the only hope of saving her dearest child, and the quarries had done so well during the last year that he was able to respond with a largesse sufficient for her needs, though not for her expectations. Mrs. Morton would have liked to have taken Constance as interpreter, and general aid and assistant; but Constance was hard at work, aspiring to a scholarship, at a ladies' college, and it was plain that her sister was not so desirous of her company as to make her mother overrule her wishes as a duty. In fact, Ida had found a fellow-traveller who would suit her much better than Constance. Living for the last year in lodgings near at hand was a Miss Gattoni, daughter of an Italian courier and French lady's maid. As half boarder at a third-rate English school, she had acquired education enough to be first a nursery-governess, and later a companion; and in her last situation, when she had gone abroad several times with a rheumatic old lady, she had recommended herself enough to receive a legacy which rendered her tolerably independent. She was very good-natured, and had graduated in the art of making herself acceptable, and, as she really wished to go abroad again, she easily induced Mrs. Morton and Ida to think it a great boon that she should join forces with them, and as she was an experienced traveller with a convenient smattering of various tongues, she really smoothed their way considerably and lived much more at her ease than she could have done upon her own resources, always frequenting English hotels and boarding-houses. Mrs. Morton and Ida were of that order of tourists who do not so much care for sights as for being on a level with those who have seen them; and besides, Ida was scarcely well or in spirits enough for much exertion till after her first month at Nice, which restored her altogether to her usual self, and made her impatient of staying in one place. It is not, however, worth while to record the wanderings of the trio, until in the next summer they reached Venice, where Ida declared her intention of penetrating into the Dolomites. There was an outcry. What could she wish for in that wild and savage country, where there was no comfortable hotel, no society, no roads--nothing in short to make life tolerable, whereas an hotel full of Americans of extreme politeness to ladies, and expeditions in gondolas, when one could talk and have plenty of attention, were only too delightful?