care for that. Mr. Greene sat silent in despair, and Mrs. Greene
stormed about the room in her anger. "I am afraid you are very
tired," said Sophonisba.

"I am tired, and hungry, and thirsty," said I. I was beginning to get
angry, and to think myself ill used. And that idea as to a family of
swindlers became strong again. Greene had borrowed ten napoleons from
me before I started for Como, and I had spent above four in my
fruitless journey to that place and Milan. I was beginning to fear
that my whole purpose as to Venice and the Tyrol would be destroyed;
and I had promised to meet friends at Innspruck, who,--who were very
much preferable to the Greenes. As events turned out, I did meet
them. Had I failed in this, the present Mrs. Robinson would not have
been sitting opposite to me.

I went to my room and dressed myself, and then Sophonisba presided
over the tea-table for me. "What are we to do?" she asked me in a
confidential whisper.

"Wait for money from England."

"But they will think we are all sharpers," she said; "and upon my word
I do not wonder at it from the way in which that woman goes on." She
then leaned forward, resting her elbow on the table and her face on
her hand, and told me a long history of all their family discomforts.
Her papa was a very good sort of man, only he had been made a fool of
by that intriguing woman, who had been left without a sixpence with
which to bless herself. And now they had nothing but quarrels and
misery. Papa did not always got the worst of it;--papa could rouse
himself sometimes; only now he was beaten down and cowed by the loss