My name is Carmela Rosselli. I am of Italian extraction, five-and-twenty years of age last December, and already--yes, I confess it freely--I was utterly world-weary. I am an only child. My mother, one of the Burnetts of Washington, married Romolo Annibale, Marchese di Pistoja, an impecunious member of the Florentine aristocracy, and after a childhood at Washington I was sent to the Convent of San Paolo della Croce at Florence to obtain my education. My mother’s money enabled the Marchese to live in the reckless style befitting a gentleman of the Tuscan nobility, but, unfortunately for me, both my parents died when I was fifteen and left me in the care of a second cousin, a woman but a few years older than myself; kind-hearted, everything that was most American and womanly, and--everything most devoted to me. Thus it was that at the age of eighteen I received the maternal kiss of the grave-eyed Mother Superior, Suor Maria, and all the good sisters in turn, and returned to Washington accompanied by my guardian, Ulrica Yorke. Like myself, Ulrica was wealthy and, being smart and good-looking, did not want for admirers. Together we lived for several years amid that society, diplomatic and otherwise, which circles around the White House, until one rather dull afternoon in the fall she, Ulrica, made a most welcome suggestion: “Carmela, I am ruined morally and physically. I feel that I want a complete change.” I suggested New York or Florida for the winter. “No,” she answered, “I feel that I must build up my constitution as well as my spirits. Europe is the only place,--say London for a month, Paris, Monte Carlo for January, then Rome till after Easter.” “To Europe!” I gasped. “Why not?” she inquired. “You have money,--what there is left of it,--and we may just as well go to Europe for a year and enjoy ourselves as vegetate here.” “You are tired of Guy?” I observed. She shrugged her well-formed shoulders, pursed her lips, and contemplated her rings. “He has become too serious,” she said simply. “And you want to escape him?” I remarked. “Do you know, Ulrica, that I really believe he loves you?” “Well, and if he does?” “I thought you told me only a couple of months ago that he was the best looking man in Washington, and that you had utterly lost your heart to him?” She laughed. “I’ve lost it so many times that I began to believe that I don’t possess that very useful portion of the human anatomy. But,” she added, “you pity him, eh? My dear Carmela, you should never pity a man. None of them is really worth sympathy. Nineteen out of every twenty are ready to declare love to any good-looking woman with money. Remember your dearest Ernest.” Mention of that name caused me a twinge. “I have forgotten him!” I cried hotly. “I have forgiven--all is of the past!” She laughed again. “And you will go to Europe with me?” she said. “You will go to commence life afresh? What a funny thing life is, isn’t it?”