"Very well; then there's no reason why we shouldn't stay in Venice till
that time. We are both very fond of the place, and we'd quite
concluded, this morning, to stop here till the mosquitoes came. You
know, Mr. Ferris, my daughter had to leave school much earlier than she
ought, for my health has obliged me to travel a great deal since I lost
my husband; and I must have her with me, for we're all that there is of
us; we haven't a chick or a child that's related to us anywhere. But
wherever we stop, even for a few weeks, I contrive to get her some kind
of instruction. I feel the need of it so much in my own case; for to
tell you the truth, Mr. Ferris, I married too young. I suppose I should
do the same thing over again if it was to be done over; but don't you
see, my mind wasn't properly formed; and then following my husband
about from pillar to post, and my first baby born when I was nineteen--
well, it wasn't education, at any rate, whatever else it was; and I've
determined that Florida, though we are such a pair of wanderers, shall
not have my regrets. I got teachers for her in England,--the English
are not anything like so disagreeable at home as they are in
traveling, and we stayed there two years,--and I did in France, and I
did in Germany. And now, Italian. Here we are in Italy, and I think we
ought to improve the time. Florida knows a good deal of Italian
already, for her music teacher in France was an Italian, and he taught
her the language as well as music. What she wants now, I should say, is
to perfect her accent and get facility. I think she ought to have some
one come every day and read and converse an hour or two with her."

Mrs. Vervain leaned back in her seat, and looked at Ferris, who said,
feeling that the matter was referred to him, "I think--without
presuming to say what Miss Vervain's need of instruction is--that your
idea is a very good one." He mused in silence his wonder that so much
addlepatedness as was at once observable in Mrs. Vervain should exist