pay the bill for every stitch she had when he married her." These
last words were so spoken as to be audible only by me, but her first
exclamation was loud enough. Were they people for whom it would be
worth my while to delay my journey, and put myself to serious
inconvenience with reference to money?

A few minutes afterwards I found myself with Greene on the terrace
before the house. "What ought I to do?" said he.

"Go to Como," said I, "and look after your box. I will remain here
and go on board the return steamer. It may perhaps be there."

"But I can't speak a word of Italian," said he.

"Take the Boots," said I.

"But I can't speak a word of French." And then it ended in my
undertaking to go to Como. I swear that the thought struck me that I
might as well take my portmanteau with me, and cut and run when I got
there. The Greenes were nothing to me.

I did not, however, do this. I made the poor man a promise, and I
kept it. I took merely a dressing-bag, for I knew that I must sleep
at Como; and, thus resolving to disarrange all my plans, I started. I
was in the midst of beautiful scenery, but I found it quite impossible
to draw any enjoyment from it;--from that or from anything around me.
My whole mind was given up to anathemas against this odious box, as to
which I had undoubtedly heavy cause of complaint. What was the box to
me? I went to Como by the afternoon steamer, and spent a long dreary
evening down on the steamboat quays searching everywhere, and