Miss Leonard was a good traveller; she was well read in history, and desirous of visiting every place of note, while she had a faculty of fixing dates and places in her mind that was truly surprising as well as convenient. Salome was very hopeful, too, for she had secured much reading matter relating to the routes they travelled, and entertained her companions, during their evenings, by reading up in advance, and thus they were always well posted regarding the history of the different places they visited. In September they went to Germany, following the Rhine slowly down to Lake Constance, where they spent the last week in October; thence through the Austrian Tyrol, and on to Italy, arriving in Rome about the first of January. Everything went well with them—there had been nothing of any moment to mar their pleasure, and Miss Leonard complimented Salome very highly for the tact which she exercised in travelling. “I should imagine that you had been used to it all your life,” she remarked one day, when Salome had smoothed over some difficulty regarding their baggage, which they encountered in crossing the Austrian frontier. “You are a very comfortable traveller, and I should surely think you had been abroad before, Salome;” she had taken to calling her by her Christian name of late. Salome smiled at the compliment, but made no reply to the supposition that she had previously been in Europe, though she flushed slightly, and Miss Leonard’s suspicions were strengthened. Then she could speak French and German with much fluency, and seemed to know all about the different kinds of money they were obliged to handle. But it was not until they reached Rome that Miss Leonard’s suspicions were confirmed. Here Salome’s enthusiasm overflowed, and she discoursed about the Forum, the Coliseum, the Palace of the Cæsars and the Catacombs in a way which plainly betrayed that she had visited them before. “When were you in Rome before, Salome?” Miss Leonard dryly asked one evening, breaking in upon an eloquent description of certain points in St. Peter’s and the Vatican. “I did not say that I had ever been here before,” Salome stammered, flushing hotly. “True, but you talk like an old sight-seer.” “You forget that we read a great deal about these places last evening,” the young girl answered. “No, I do not; but if my memory serves me right, there was nothing in these books about the comparative merits of the Pompeian baths and those of Caracalla, and you have given me several points upon the subject. Salome, you have been abroad before?” “Yes,” the young girl confessed, tears starting to her eyes over memories thus aroused. “When?” “Not so very long ago—less than two years.” “You must have been tenderly reared—your parents must have been wealthy?” “Yes.” “And you have lost all your friends—all your money?” “All—everything!” she returned sadly, but just how much those two words comprehended, she alone knew.