table; and that the departure of the Colonnas
immediately after dinner would spoil the evening.

In the mean while Signor Colonna was deep
in consultation with the newcomer; Olimpia,
assisted by one of the maids, was busy packing her
father's books and papers; the Earl was wandering
disconsolately to and fro, seeking his
opportunity; and Saxon Trefalden, mounted on his
swiftest thorough-bred, was galloping towards
the hills, determined to leave a clear field for
his friend, and not to come back till the first
dinner-bell should be ringing.

At length, as the afternoon wore on, the Earl
grew tired of waiting about the drawing-rooms
and staircase, and sought Olimpia in her father's
quarters. There he found her, not in Colonna's
own den, but in the room immediately beneath it,
kneeling before a huge army trunk more than
half filled with pamphlets, letters, despatches,
maps, and documentary lumber of every
description. More books and papers littered the
floor and table, and these the servant was dusting
previous to their being sorted and tied up
by Miss Colonna.

"Can I be of any service?" asked the Earl,
as he peeped in through the half-opened door.

Olimpia looked up with a pleasant smile.

"Are you really in want of something to
do?" said she.

"Greatly."

"Then you may help to sort these papers.
Among them are some dozens of last year's
reports. You can arrange those according to
date, and tie them up in parcels of about
eighteen or twenty."

The Earl set about his task with much seeming
alacrity.

"We owe Montecuculi a grudge for this," he
said, presently. "Who would have thought
this morning at breakfast that you would strike
your tents and flee away into the great London
desert before night?"

"Who would have thought that we should
have such glorious cause for breaking up our
camp?" retorted Olimpia, with enthusiasm.

"No one, indeed. And yet I wish the news
had not travelled quite so quickly."

"Good news cannot fly too fast," replied
Olimpia. "I scarcely dare trust myself to
think what the next may be."

"At least, do not hope too much."

"Nay, I have desponded long enough. Hope
has been for so many years a forbidden luxury,
that I feel as if I could not now drink of it too
deeply. I hope all things. I expect all things.
I believe that the hour is come at last, and that
miracles will be accomplished within the next
few months."

The Earl, thinking more of his own hopes and
fears at that moment than of Italy or the Italians,
wished with all his heart that a miracle could be
accomplished then and there for the translation
of the housemaid to any convenient planet.

"I should not be surprised," continued
Olimpia, "if I heard to-morrow that Garibaldi
was in Messina—or that he had crossed the
straits, and carried Naples by a coup de
main!"

"Nor I," replied Castletowers, abstractedly.

And then for a few moments they were both
silent. In the midst of their silence, a bell rang
long and loudly in some part of the offices
below.

"What bell is that?" asked the Earl, who
had heard it thousands of times in the course of
his home-life, and knew its import perfectly.

"It's the servants' hall bell, my lord,"
replied the housemaid.

"And what does it mean, then—the servants'
tea?"

"Yes, my lord."

Olimpia took the Earl's little bait
immediately.

"You need not mind the rest of those papers
now, Jane," she said, good naturedly. "Go
down at once, and come back when you have
had tea."

Whereupon the housemaid, duly grateful, left
the room.

And now Lord Castletowers had only to
speak. The coveted opportunity was his at
last; but it was no sooner his than he lost his
presence of mind, and found himself without a
word to say.

Presently Olimpia looked up, and spoke
again.

"How hard a thing it is," said she, "to be a
woman—a mere woman! How hard to sit down
tamely, day after day, listening to the echoes of
the battle-field—listening and waiting!"

"I am very glad you are listening from so
safe a distance."

"And I pray that that distance may soon be
lessened," she retorted, quickly. "We shall
undoubtedly go to Genoa in the course of the
next fortnight; and if my father crosses to
Sicily, I do not mean to be left behind."

"But the Mediterranean swarms with
Neapolitan war-steamers!" exclaimed the Earl.

Olimpia smiled.

"Besides, of what service could you be when
there? You will perhaps say that you can do
hospital work; but the hospitals do not want
you. Ten per cent of our volunteers are medical
men, and I will venture to say that every woman
in Sicily is a willing nurse."

"I would do any work that my head or hands
could be trusted to perform," said she; "whether
it were at the desk, or the bedside. Oh, that I
could give my blood for the cause!"

"Men give their blood," replied the Earl;
"but women the tears that make death sweet,
and the smiles that make victory worth achieving."

Olimpia's lip curled scornfully.

"Our soldiers have nobler ends at stake than
women's smiles!" said she.

The Earl was in despair. Nothing that he
had said seemed to find favour with Miss
Colonna, and all this time the minutes were slipping
away—the precious minutes for which there
would be no recal.

"True friend to the cause as I am, Olimpia,"