As for Mrs. Copley, she had by no means intended their sojourn to be an emigration, but she reflected that her husband had to be amused in some way, and that reforming Italian posterity was perhaps an harmless a way as he could have devised. She settled herself very contentedly to the enjoyment of the somewhat shifting foreign society of the capital, with only an occasional plaintive reference to her friends in New York and to Gerald’s French. Marcia, leaning back in her chair, watched her uncle dispose of his correspondence with a visible air of amusement. He had a thin nervous face traced with fine lines, a sharply cut jaw, and a mouth which twitched easily into a smile. To-night, however, as he ripped open envelope after envelope, he frowned oftener than he smiled; and presently, as he unfolded one letter, he suppressed a quick exclamation of anger. ‘Read that,’ he said shortly, tossing it to the other man. Sybert perused it with no visible change of expression, and leaning over, he dropped it into the open grate. Marcia laughed outright. ‘Your mail doesn’t seem to afford you much satisfaction, Uncle Howard.’ ‘A large share of it’s anonymous, and not all of it’s polite.’ ‘That is what you must expect if you will hound those poor old beggars to death.’ The two men shot each other a look of rather grim amusement. The letter in question had nothing to do with beggars, but Mr. Copley had no intention of discussing its contents with his niece. ‘I find that the usual reward of virtue in this world is an anonymous letter,’ he remarked, shrugging the matter from his mind and settling himself comfortably to his tea. The guest refused the cup proffered him. ‘I haven’t the courage,’ he declared, ‘after Gerald’s revelations.’ ‘By the way, Sybert,’ said Copley, ‘I have been hearing some bad stories about you to-day. My niece doesn’t like to have me associate with you.’ Marcia looked at her uncle helplessly; when he once commenced teasing there was no telling where he would stop. ‘I am sorry,’ said Sybert humbly. ‘What is the trouble?’ ‘She has found out that you are an anarchist.’ Both men laughed, and Marcia flushed slightly. ‘Please, Miss Marcia,’ Sybert begged, ‘give me time to get out of the country before you expose me to the police.’ ‘There’s no cause for fear,’ she returned. ‘I didn’t believe the story when I heard it, for I knew that you haven’t energy enough to run away from a bomb, much less throw one. That’s why it surprised me that other people should believe it.’ ‘But most people have a better opinion of me than you have,’ he expostulated. ‘No, indeed, Mr. Sybert; I have a better opinion of you than most people. I really consider you harmless.’ The young man laughed and bowed his thanks, while he turned his attention to Mrs. Copley. ‘I hope that Villa Vivalanti will prove more successful than the one in Naples.’