told not to be rude. After lunch Harriet would get out
Baedeker, and read in injured tones about Monteriano, the
Mons Rianus of Antiquity, till her mother stopped her.

"It's ridiculous to read, dear. She's not trying to
marry any one in the place. Some tourist, obviously, who's
stopping in the hotel. The place has nothing to do with it
at all."

"But what a place to go to! What nice person, too, do
you meet in a hotel?"

"Nice or nasty, as I have told you several times before,
is not the point. Lilia has insulted our family, and she
shall suffer for it. And when you speak against hotels, I
think you forget that I met your father at Chamounix. You
can contribute nothing, dear, at present, and I think you
had better hold your tongue. I am going to the kitchen, to
speak about the range."

She spoke just too much, and the cook said that if she
could not give satisfaction--she had better leave. A small
thing at hand is greater than a great thing remote, and
Lilia, misconducting herself upon a mountain in Central
Italy, was immediately hidden. Mrs. Herriton flew to a
registry office, failed; flew to another, failed again; came
home, was told by the housemaid that things seemed so
unsettled that she had better leave as well; had tea, wrote
six letters, was interrupted by cook and housemaid, both
weeping, asking her pardon, and imploring to be taken back.