She didn’t find him quite as entertaining or easy to be understood as she had at first. It was not much like Tennyson’s “May Queen,” or Tennyson’s anything, she thought, and at last threw the book down in disgust, half tempted to go after Alice and the hornets, especially as she saw Mark walking down the lane in that direction. Taking up the encyclopedia she turned to the story of Sordello, which pleased her better. Here was something she could understand, and she read it over and made copious notes from it for future reference, and felt herself quite mistress of the narrative in all its different phases. She could not explain why, but Mark Hilton always stood for Sordello, while she was Palma, and with this fancy she finished the story. To wade through the poem was a different matter. Then a happy thought occurred to her. She could commit parts of it, and, if necessary, fire them off at Craig, who would be impressed with her superior knowledge. Just what to commit she didn’t know. So she took bits here and there at random, learned them in a short time, with no conception of their meaning, and was ready for the class. Days and weeks passed. The class was not called and she forgot a good deal she had stored up, and when Craig unexpectedly announced the meeting for that afternoon she was thrown into a state of great consternation and hardly knew whether Sordello had been a troubadour or a hotel clerk,—whether he belonged to a noble family, or was ’Tina’s great-grandson,—and whether he was still in Purgatory, where Dante saw him, or at the Prospect House, receiving orders from Mrs. Taylor. Her Browning knowledge was a good deal of a jumble, which she must disentangle. She had made too many admissions of her liking for him to fail when the test came, and all the morning which was one of the hottest and sultriest of the season, she was shut in her room, going over the story again and re-committing the passages which had escaped her memory. Sordello and Mark Hilton were pretty equally mixed in her mind, which for some reason she found more difficult to concentrate on the subject than she did before, and as she spent the morning so she spent the time after dinner alone in her room, letting no one in and saying she had a headache and was resting. She did look a little heavy-eyed when she was at last ready to join the group on the piazza. Tired as she was she had taken a great deal of pains with her toilet, dressing more for Mark than for Craig, who, she had found, was less of a connoisseur in the matter of women’s attire than Mark. She would have liked to have worn white that hot day, but Mark did not like white gowns and blue ribbons, because ’Tina was said to figure in these when she visited the haunted house. So she chose a soft grey chally with elaborate trimmings of pink and white chiffon. Two or three of Mark’s roses were her only ornaments except her costly rings. With her smelling