by him gave him a delicious thrill. He looked at the superb creature,
so proud, so helpless; so much a woman, so much a child; and he caught
his breath before he answered. Her gauzes blew about his feet in the
light breeze that lifted the foliage; she was a little near-sighted,
and in her eagerness she drew closer to him, fixing her eyes full upon
his with a bold innocence. "Good heavens! Miss Vervain," he cried, with
a sudden blush, "it isn't a serious matter. I'm a fool to have spoken
to you. Don't do anything. Let things go on as before. It isn't for me
to instruct you."

"I should have been very glad of your advice," she said with a
disappointed, almost wounded manner, keeping her eyes upon him. "It
seems to me we are always going wrong"--

She stopped short, with a flush and then a pallor.

Ferris returned her look with one of comical dismay. This apparent
readiness of Miss Vervain's to be taken command of, daunted him, on
second thoughts. "I wish you'd dismiss all my stupid talk from your
mind," he said. "I feel as if I'd been guiltily trying to set you
against a man whom I like very much and have no reason not to trust,
and who thinks me so much his friend that he couldn't dream of my
making any sort of trouble for him. It would break his heart, I'm
afraid, if you treated him in a different way from that in which you've
treated him till now. It's really touching to listen to his gratitude
to you and your mother. It's only conceivable on the ground that he has
never had friends before in the world. He seems like another man, or
the same man come to life. And it isn't his fault that he's a priest. I
suppose," he added, with a sort of final throe, "that a Venetian family
wouldn't use him with the frank hospitality you've shown, not because