Everard and Herbert made their tour through Italy without very much heart for the performance; but partly out of pride, partly because, when once started on a _giro_ of any kind, it is easier to go on than to turn back, they accomplished it. On Herbert’s part, indeed, there was occasion for a very strong backbone of pride to keep him up, for the poor young fellow, whose health was not so strong as he thought, had one or two warnings of this fact, and when shut up for a week or two in Rome or in Naples, longed unspeakably for the sister who had always been his nurse and companion. Everard was very kind, and gave up a great deal of his time to the invalid; but it was not to be expected that he should absolutely devote himself, as Reine did, thinking of nothing in the world but Herbert. He had, indeed, many other things to think of, and when the state of convalescence was reached, he left the patient to get better as he could, though he was very good to him when he was absolutely ill. What more could any one ask? But poor Herbert wanted more. He wanted Reine, and thus learned how foolish it was to throw his prop away. Reine in the meanwhile wanted him, and spent many wretched hours in the heart of that still Normandy, longing to be with the travellers, to know what they were about, and how her brother arranged his life without her. The young men arrived at the Château Mirfleur at the earliest moment permissible, getting there in the end of April, to pick up Reine; and as they had all been longing for this meeting, any clouds that had risen on the firmament dispersed at once before the sunshine. They were so glad to be together again, that they did not ask why or how they had separated. And instead of singing “Ma Normandie,” as she had done at Cannes, Reine sang “Home, sweet home,” bringing tears into the eyes of the wanderers with that tender ditty. Herbert and she were indeed much excited about their home-going, as was natural. They had not been at Whiteladies for six years, a large slice out of their young lives. They had been boy and girl when they left it, and now they were man and woman. And all the responsibilities of life awaited Herbert, now three-and-twenty, in full possession of his rights. In the first tenderness of the reunion Reine and he had again many talks over this life which was now beginning--a different kind of life from that which he thought, poor boy, he was making acquaintance with in billiard-rooms, etc. I think he had ceased to confide in the billiard-room version of existence, but probably not so much from good sense or any virtue of his, as from the convincing effect of those two “attacks” which he had been assailed by at Rome and Naples, and which proved to him that he was not yet strong enough to dare vulgar excitements, and turn night into day.