if she would have been as content if she had
known the full particulars of the casus belli.
Mr. Bentley said it was the hardened and
Impenetrable nature of Madame Floriani—
how that he had sought to convert her, and
she had answered him only with mockery—
and Madame Floriani said nothing. She
only laughed; and drew a certain sketch,
which she showed to the Winter girls under
the strictest vows of secresy. Which, to
their honour be it said, they religiously kept.
Though, when Helen Winter met Mr. Bentley
the day after she had seen that drawing,
she turned so red in trying to look grave,
that Laura pinched her arm, and said,
"Helen! don't be silly," below her breath.

The Bentleyites were the strongest. In a
short time Madame Rosa's Wednesday
evenings were almost deserted. All the very
good avoided her and her house as if a moral
plague existed around her. The Miss
Grandvilles, indeed, very nearly cut her. They
scarcely bowed when they saw her, and
passed her very stiffly even in church.
Sometimes they were afflicted with sudden
short-sightedness, and did not see her at all.
Miss Augusta, through being triumphant,
could afford to be magnanimous; and she
was a shade less distant in her manner:
when met with Mr. Bentley, she was
positively gracious. Then the Cantabs went
back to their respective colleges, and the
leaves began to fall. In the dreary autumn
weather—the rain and fog and drizzling mist
—that now came on, even her own adherents
could not come out so often to see her; so
that the sweet face grew sad in thinking of
the bright sky and the warm hearts of Italy;
and the joyous spirits sank in this social
solitude, for want of love and sympathy to
sustain it. The days were so grey and dark,
she could not even paint; and in the
Langthwaite lending library, were only dull
histories or biographies. The mud and the rain
frightened the soft half-foreigner, and kept
her much within doors, moping in a dull
Cumberland house, where the clouds came
down so low, that they sometimes rested on
the roof; and where the only visitors she saw
were half-a-dozen good-hearted country girls,
with not an idea amongst them beyond Berlin
work or babies' caps; which, to a woman
accustomed to the best and most intellectual
society of Rome, was scarcely sullicient
mental distraction. What was she to do?—
fight or retire? She thought of Italy, of her
friends there, of the treasures of art, of
the beauty, the free life, the ease, the love,
the fulness of existence,—and she covered
her face in her hands, while tears forced
their way through her fingers. Then she
thought of Mr. Bentley, and of his offer
and of how he looked when he was down on
his knees before her; and she laughed till
she had a pain in her side. But she could
not laugh for ever at Mr. Bentley and his
offer, and the ennui of her life began to grow
insupportable, It was reported at last that
she was going away. It was Laura Winter
who said so first, by Rosa's permission, one
day after she had been at Whitefield House.
Madame Floriani had cried, and said that she
was ill; the constant damp did not agree
with her; and she had grown very thin and
sallow rather than pale as she used to be;
and she said, too, that she was dull; she
could not bear it any longer. Her heart was
Italian. It would not live in such an atmosphere;
and then she had cried dreadfully, and
Laura had cried too, for sympathy. As girls
in the country always do.

So, Rosa owned herself beaten.
Langthwaite morality had been too strong for her,
and Langthwaite coldness too severe. Mr.
Bentley had won the battle, and she cared
now only for her retreat. She packed up her
pictures and her books, her statues and her
blue silk curtains; advertised Whitefield
House for sale; and sold it well too. A retired
sugar-broker bought it, and furnished it in
gold and velvet. He had not a picture, nor a
bust, nor a book; but he had hangings that
cost a small fortune, and an assortment of
colours that must surely please some one, as
none in the whole rainbow were absent.
Rosa had nothing to do with this; all she
cared for, was to get out of Langthwaite, and
to leave Cumberland clouds for Italian
sunshine. She went to make her farewell
calls. And, after having kissed all the Miss
Grandvilles on both cheeks—for she was a
generous, forgiving woman, with a loving
heart and a perfect temper, and would not
bear malice if she died for it—and after
having shaken hands cordially with Mr.
Bentley—who, like a foolish fat schoolboy,
attempted to sulk—she turned her sweet face
to the south, and left a climate that was
killing her, and a people who did not love
her, for the beauty and the graciousness of
Italy.

But she left the seeds of discord behind
her that soon bore deadly fruit. Deprived
of their patroness, the Florianites sank to
the ground. They were snubbed, maltreated,
slighted, and all but extinguished. And
when Miss Augusta Grandville at last got
Mr. Bentley to consent to their marriage, not
one of them was invited to the wedding. It
was the day of retribution, and the Bentley
faction were unsparing.

Madame Floriani did not forget her old
adherents when she was established in her
Roman home again; and after the Grandville
marriage had turned out notoriously ill—for
Miss Augusta was imperious, and Mr. Bentley
obstinate—she invited the two Winter girls
to Rome, and actually sent a man-servant all
the way down to Langthwaite to take care of
them on their journey. Which royal act
nearly canonised her, though Mrs. Bentley
said it was ridiculous, "And, good
gracious! could not those two girls take care
of themselves—if indeed they went at all,