Julia would have driven me mad!"

Julia was his eldest step-brother's wife, and a
thorn in his side.

"I should not have wished you to stay with your
relatives," Montanelli answered gently. "I am
sure it would have been the worst possible thing
for you. But I wish you could have accepted the
invitation of your English doctor friend; if you had
spent a month in his house you would have been
more fit to study."

"No, Padre, I shouldn't indeed! The Warrens
are very good and kind, but they don't understand;
and then they are sorry for me,--I can see it in
all their faces,--and they would try to console me,
and talk about mother. Gemma wouldn't, of
course; she always knew what not to say, even
when we were babies; but the others would.
And it isn't only that----"

"What is it then, my son?"

Arthur pulled off some blossoms from a drooping
foxglove stem and crushed them nervously in
his hand.

"I can't bear the town," he began after a moment's
pause. "There are the shops where she