Ferris. He isn't capable of anything really rude. Besides, there
wouldn't have been any sense in it."

The young girl brought the water and then knelt beside the sofa, on
which she arranged the pillows under her mother, and covered her with
soft wraps. She laid her cheek against the thinner face. "Don't mind
anything I've said, mother; let's talk of something else."

The mother drew some loose threads of the daughter's hair through her
slender fingers, but said little more, and presently fell into a deep
slumber. Florida gently lifted her head away, and remained kneeling
before the sofa, looking into the sleeping face with an expression of
strenuous, compassionate devotion, mixed with a vague alarm and self-
pity, and a certain wondering anxiety.




III.


Don Ippolito had slept upon his interview with Ferris, and now sat in
his laboratory, amidst the many witnesses of his inventive industry,
with the model of the breech-loading cannon on the workbench before
him. He had neatly mounted it on wheels, that its completeness might do
him the greater credit with the consul when he should show it him, but
the carriage had been broken in his pocket, on the way home, by an
unlucky thrust from the burden of a porter, and the poor toy lay there
disabled, as if to dramatize that premature explosion in the secret
chamber.