"The question is, my dear madam, whether
you are strong enough to encounter the fatigue
of so long a journey."

"I am sure that mamma is not nearly strong
enough," said Miss Rivière, quickly.

"I might travel slowly."

"To travel slowly is not enough," said
Mr. Trefalden. "You should travel without
anxiety — I mean, you should be accompanied by
some person who could make all the rough
places smooth and all the crooked paths straight
for you throughout the journey."

"I should be unwilling to incur the expense
of employing a courier, if I could possibly avoid
it," said Mrs. Rivière.

"No doubt: for a courier is not only a costly,
but a very anomalous and disagreeable
incumbrance. He is both your servant and your
master. Might it not, however, be possible for you
to join a party travelling towards the same
point?"

"You forget that we know no one in this
country."

"Nay, those things are frequently arranged,
even with strangers."

"Besides, who would care to be burdened
with two helpless women? No stranger would
accept the responsibility."

Mr. Trefalden paused a moment before replying.

"Given an equally suitable climate," he said,
"I presume you are not absolutely wedded to
Italy as a place of residence?"

"I love it better than any other country in
the world."

"Yet I think I have heard you say that you are
not acquainted with the southern coast?"

"True; we always lived in Florence."

"Then neither Mentone nor Nice would
possess any charm of association for you?"

"Only the association of language and
climate."

"And of these two conditions, that of climate
can alone be pronounced essential; but I should
say that you might make a more favourable
choice than either. Has it never occurred to
you that the air of Egypt or Madeira might be
worth a trial, if only for one winter?"

"Mamma has been advised to try both," said
Miss Riviere.

"But I prefer Italy," said the invalid.
"The happiest years of my life were spent under
an Italian sky."

"Pardon me; but should you, my dear
madam, allow yourself to be influenced by
preference in such a case as this?" asked Mr.
Trefalden, very deferentially.

"I can offer a better reason, then — poverty.
It is possible to live in Italy for very, very little,
when one knows the people and the country so
well as we know them; but I could not afford
to live in Madeira or Egypt."

"The journey to Madeira is easy, and not
very expensive," said Mr. Trefalden.

Mrs. Rivière shook her head.

"I should not dare to undertake it," she
replied.

"Not with a careful escort?"

"Nay, if even that were my only difficulty,
where should I find one?"

"In myself."

The mother and daughter looked up with
surprise.

"In you, Mr. Forsyth?" they exclaimed,
simultaneously

Mr. Trefalden smiled.

"You need not let that astonish you," he
said; " it is my intention to spend all my
future winters abroad, and I am greatly tempted
by much that I have heard and read lately about
Madeira. I am a free man, however, and if
Mrs. Rivière preferred to venture upon Egypt,
I would quite willingly exchange Funchal for
the Nile.''

"This is too much goodness."

"And, if you will not think that I take an
unwarrantable liberty in saying so, I may add
that the question of expense must not be
allowed to enter into your calculations."

But —-"

"One moment, my dear madam," interrupted
the lawyer. "Pray do not suppose that I am
presuming to offer you pecuniary assistance.
Nothing of the kind. I am simply offering to
advance you whatever sums you may require
upon the remainder of Mr. Rivière's paintings
and sketches; or, if you prefer it, I will at once
purchase them from you."

"In order that I may have the means of going
to Madeira?" said Mrs. Rivière, colouring
painfully. "No, my kind friend; I begin to understand
you now. It cannot be."

"I fear you are beginning only to misunderstand
me," replied Mr. Trefalden, with grave
earnestness. "If you were even right — if I
were only endeavouring to assist the widow of
one whose memory and genius I deeply revere,
I do not think you ought to feel wounded by
the motive; but I give you my word of honour
that such is not my prevailing reason."

"Do you mean that you really wish to
possess . . . ."

"Every picture from which you are willing
to part."

"But you would then have from twenty-five
to thirty paintings from the same brush many
of them quite large subjects?"

"So much the better."

"Yet, it seems inconceivable that . . . ."

"That I should desire to make a Rivière
collection? Such, nevertheless, is my ambition."

"Then you must have a spacious gallery?"

Mr. Trefalden shook his head.

"I have no gallery," he said, "at present.
Some day, perhaps, if I ever fulfil a long-
cherished dream, I may settle abroad, and build a
house and gallery in some beautiful spot; but
that is only a project, and the destinies of
projects are uncertain."

He glanced at Miss Rivière as he said this,
and seemed to suppress a sigh. She was looking
away at the moment; but her mother saw
the glance, and Mr. Trefalden intended that she
should see it.