‘Now I like that,’ cried Mrs. Rich; ‘I like you for being so proud of your brother. There are heaps of heiresses, you know, in Italy--at least so one reads in books; ladies travelling alone, that a young man could make himself very useful to, and then in common gratitude---- Why it is quite like a fairy tale. And when will your brother go? and what will he do in Italy? Mr. Rich has promised to take us there next winter. I have wanted to go all my life, Mr. Frank. It has been my dream. How strange it would be if we should meet him! But, alas! we have no heiresses,’ said Mrs. Rich, casting a glance at Nelly, who, for her part, gave her mother a quick, indignant look. ‘We shall go like a caravanserai,’ said Nelly, ‘with servants, and companions, and all sorts of dead-weights. Papa says he means to take that Count with him who is sick, and heaps of people. What I should like to do would be to go all by myself, and live out of the English quarter, and see all the pictures, and never say a word to anybody. Fancy going to Rome and somebody saying to you, “ Isn’t it lovely?” as if it were a scene in a pantomime! I do so hate all that. I hate the books about parties to the Colosseum and rides in the Campagna. I want to go to Rome, and live and work. I wish I were your brother. I wish I could go wherever I pleased, and run about everywhere alone.’ ‘I wish you could go with Laurie,’ said Frank, and for the moment it was said with absolute simplicity, without a thought of his scheme; ‘that is precisely what he will do; and he knows everything,--where to go, and what to see.’ Then he caught the odd, inquiring glance Nelly shot at him, and grew confused, he could scarcely tell why. ‘Of course, that is nonsense,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘But it must be the pleasantest of all when two people, just two, can ramble all about the world alone.’