foliage, glowed in the rays of the setting sun.

Here Mrs. Douglas was to meet her brother; and she, Malcom, and Margery
were full of eager excitement. It was hard to wait until the little
crowd of people collected on the wharf should separate into distinct
individuals.

"There he is! there is Uncle Robert! I see him!" cried Malcom. "He is
waving his handkerchief from the top of his cane!"

While Mrs. Douglas and Margery pressed forward to send some token of
recognition across the rapidly diminishing breadth of waters, Barbara
and Bettina sought with vivid interest the figure and face of one whom
they remembered but slightly, but of whom they had heard much. Robert
Sumner was a name often mentioned in their home for, as a boy, and young
man, he had been particularly dear to Dr. Burnett and had been held up
as a model of all excellence before his own boys.

Some six years before the time of our story he was to marry a beautiful
girl, who died almost on the eve of what was to have been their
marriage-day. Stunned by the affliction, the young artist bade good-by
to home and friends and went to Italy, feeling that he could bear his
loss only under new conditions; and, ever since, that country had been
his home. He had travelled widely, yet had always returned to Italy.
"Next year I will go back to America," he had often thought; but there
was still a shrinking from the coming into contact with painful
associations. Only his sister and her children were left of the home
circle and it were happier if they would come to him; so he had stayed
on, a voluntary exile.