"What an ignoble confession! It means
this, that your friendship depends on the rate of
the exchanges, and that when gold rises—
But here comes Luigi Filippo. Now, no
squeamishness, but write your name firmly.
'Cut boldly,' said the auger, 'and he cut it
through.' Don't you remember that classic
anecdote in your Roman history ?"

. It is a strange fact that the spirit of raillery,
which, to a dull man, is, at first, but a source of
irritation and fretfulness, will, when persevered
in, become, at last, one of the most complete
despotisms. He dreads it as a weapon which
be cannot defend himself against; and he comes
to regard it as an evidence of superiority and
power. Barnard saw the domination that the
other exercised over him, but could not resist
it.

"Where to now?" asked he, as they whirled
rapidly along the road towards Monza.

"First of all, to Orta. There is an English
family I want to see. Two prettier girls you
can't imagine—not that the news has any
interest for you, poor caged mouse that you are—
but l am in love with one of them. I forget
which, but I believe it is the one that won't
have me."

"She's right," said Barnard, with a half
smile.

" "Well, I half suspect she is. I could be a
charming lover, but I fear I'd make only a
sorry husband. My qualities are too brilliant
for every-day use. It is your dreary fellows,
with a tiresome monotony of nature, do best in
that melancholy mill they call marriage. You,
for instance, ought to be a model 'mari.' "

" You are not disposed to give me the chance,
I think," said Barnard, peevishly.

"On the contrary, I am preparing you most
carefully for your career. Conjugal life is a
reformatory. You must come to it as a penitent.
Now, I'll teach you the first part of your
lesson; your wife shall supply the second."

"I'd relish this much better if— "

"I had not lost that money, you were going
to say. Out with it, man. "When a fellow
chances upon a witty thing, he has a right to
repeat it ; besides, you have reason on your
side. A loser is always wrong. But, after all,
Bob, whether the game be war, or marriage, or
a horse-race, one's skill has very little to say to
it. Make the wisest combinations that ever were
fashioned, and you'll lose sometimes. Draw
your card at hazard, and you'll win. If you
only saw the fellow that beat me t'other day in a
girl's affections as dreary a dog as ever you met
in your life, without manliness, without 'go' in
him—and yet he wasn't a curate. I know you
suspect he was a curate."

"If you come through this affair all right,
what do you intend to turn to, Calvert ?" said
the other, who really felt a sort of interest in
his fortunes.

"I have thought of several things : the
Church—the Colonies—Patent Fuel—Marriage
—Turkish Baths, and a Sympathy Society for
Suffering Nationalities, with a limited liability
to all who subscribe fifty pounds and
upwards."

"But, seriously, have you any plans?"

"Ten thousand plans! I have plans enough
to ruin all Threadneedle-street ; but what use
are plans ? "What's the good of an architect in
a land where there are no bricks, no mortar,
and no timber? When I've shot Graham, I've
a plan how to make my escape out of Switzerland;
but, beyond that, nothing; not one step, I
promise you. See yonder is Monte Rosa; how
grand he looks in the still calm air of the morning.
What a gentleman a mountain is; how
independent of the changeful fortunes of the
plains, where grass succeeds tillage, and what is
barley to-day, may be a brick-field to-morrow;
but the mountain is ever the same—proud and
cold if you will, but standing above all the
accidents of condition, and asserting itself by
qualities which are not money-getting. I'd like to
live in a land of mountains, if it were not for the
snobs that come to climb them."

"But why should they be snobs ?"

"I don't know; perhaps the mountains like
it. There, look yonder, our road leads along
that ledge till we reach Chiasso, about twelve
miles off; do you think you can last that long
without breakfast? There, there, don't make
that pitiful face; you shall have your beefsteak,
and your chocolate, and your eggs, and all the
other claims of your Anglo-Saxon nature, whose
birthright it is to growl for every twenty-four
hours, and 'grub' every two."

They gained the little inn at Orta by the
evening, and learned, as Calvert expected, that
nothing had changed in his absence—indeed,
what was there to change—so long as the family
at the villa remained in the cottage. All was to
Calvert as he left it.

Apologising to his friend for a brief absence,
he took boat and crossed the lake. It was just
as they had sat down to tea that he entered the
drawing-room.

If there was some constraint in the reception
of him, there was that amount of surprise
at his appearance that half masked it. "You
have been away, Mr. Calvert ?" asked Miss
Grainger.

"Yes," said he, carelessly, " I got a rambling
fit on me, and finding that Loyd had started for
England, I grew fidgety at being alone, so I went
up to Milan, saw churches and galleries, and the
last act of a ballet ; but, like a country mouse,
got home-sick for the hard peas and the hollow
tree, and hurried back again."

After some careless talk of  common-places,
he managed at last to secure the chair beside
Florence's sofa, and affected to take an interest
in some work she was engaged at. "I have been
anxious to see you, and speak to you, Florry,"
said he, in a low tone, not audible by the others.
"I had a letter from Loyd, written just before
he left. He has told me everything."

She only bent down her head more deeply
over her work, but did not speak.

"Yes; he was more candid than you,"
continued he." He said you were engaged—that