"Well," said Mrs. Vervain; "I'm exceedingly sorry. I had quite set my
heart on it. I never took such a fancy to any one in such a short time
before."

"It seemed to be a case of love at first sight on both sides," said
Ferris. "Padre Girolamo doesn't shower those syruped rose-leaves
indiscriminately upon visitors."

"Thanks," returned Mrs. Vervain; "it's very good of you to say so, Mr.
Ferris, and it's very gratifying, all round; but don't you see, it
doesn't serve the present purpose. What teachers do you know of?"

She had been by marriage so long in the service of the United States
that she still regarded its agents as part of her own domestic economy.
Consuls she everywhere employed as functionaries specially appointed to
look after the interests of American ladies traveling without
protection. In the week which had passed since her arrival in Venice,
there had been no day on which she did not appeal to Ferris for help or
sympathy or advice. She took amiable possession of him at once, and she
had established an amusing sort of intimacy with him, to which the
haughty trepidations of her daughter set certain bounds, but in which
the demand that he should find her a suitable Italian teacher seemed
trivially matter of course.

"Yes. I know several teachers," he said, after thinking awhile; "but
they're all open to the objection of being human; and besides, they all
do things in a set kind of way, and I'm afraid they wouldn't enter into
the spirit of any scheme of instruction that departed very widely from
Ollendorff." He paused, and Mrs. Vervain gave a sketch of the different