When Betsey and I were going home she gave me an account of her talk with Mrs. Rantone. The young woman's father had been a successful Minnesota grocer. The family came to Italy on a Cook's tour. The young man fell in love with the grocer's daughter, and they met him everywhere they went. He followed them to Minnesota, and the two were married there. Mrs. Rantone had said that he was a fine man and an excellent doctor, but that his friends would have nothing to do with her because she was the daughter of a tradesman of moderate means. They had supposed that every American who traveled abroad was rich, as indeed such travelers ought to be. After living nearly eight years in Rome she had only three Italian friends. She naturally felt that she was a dead weight on the shoulders of her husband; that she could contribute nothing to his success and she was most unhappy. “Are your parents still living in Minnesota?” Betsey asked. “They're all alone in the old home,” said the poor expatriate. “They must miss you terribly.” “Well, why did they bring me here?” was her pathetic answer. I could see that Betsey was recovering from the fascinations of the marriage market. “The 'devil-_op_-ments' of this night should have some effect on the price of Romeos,” I remarked. “And the insanity of Juliets,” said Betsey. “I'm going to spring this on Gwen and her mother. But they won't believe it.” When we arrived at our hotel its porter gave me a note from Norris which said: “Please come to my room on receipt of this.” XII.--IN WHICH NORRIS TAKES HIS LIGHT FROM UNDER THE BUSHEL I FOUND Norris in bed, propped up with pillows and looking very pale. His mother and nurse were with him; the ladies had gone out to dinner with Forbes and would spend an hour or so at the ball. “I had a bad turn at ten o'clock,” said Norris, “but the doctor came and patched me up, and has gone out for a walk. Mother, will you and the nurse go into the other room until I call you? I want to talk with Mr. Potter.” Mrs. Norris, the elder, was a slim, tender little woman, with a flavor of the old-time Yankee folks in her customs and conversation. When she was not doing something for her “boy,” as she called him, I often found her sitting in her rocking-chair by the window with her fancy-work or her Bible. Once when I sat waiting to see Norris, while he was napping, she sang “The Old, Old Story” in a low voice as she rocked. Before leaving the room that night, when I had been summoned to his bedside, she went to his bed and leaned over him and looked thoughtfully into his face. Then she gently touched it with her hand. “How is my boy feeling now?” she asked. “Oh, I'm better, mother,” he answered, cheerfully. “You look more and more like your father,” she said, standing by the bed, with her hands on her hips, reluctant to leave him. “I wish I were as good a man as my father,” said Norris. “Your father! He is one of the saints of heaven,” she answered.