brightened. His customary coldness with women melted instantly: he
kissed his hand to her. She returned the salute (so familiar to her in
Italy) with her gentle smile, and looked back into the room. Teresa
showed herself at the window. Always following her impulses without
troubling herself to think first, the duenna followed them now. "We are
dull up here," she called out. "Come back to us, Mr. Ovid." The words
had hardly been spoken before they both turned from the window. Teresa
pointed significantly into the room. They disappeared.

Ovid went back to the library.

"Anybody listening?" Mr. Mool inquired.

"I have not discovered anybody, but I doubt if a stray cat could have
upset that heavy flower-pot." He looked round him as he made the reply.
"Where is my mother?" he asked.

Mrs. Gallilee had gone upstairs, eager to tell Carmina of the handsome
allowance made to her by her father. Having answered in these terms,
Mr. Mool began to fold up the Will--and suddenly stopped.

"Very inconsiderate, on my part," he said; "I forgot, Mr. Ovid, that
you haven't heard the end of it. Let me give you a brief abstract. You
know, perhaps, that Miss Carmina is a Catholic? Very natural--her poor
mother's religion. Well, sir, her good father forgets nothing. All
attempts at proselytizing are strictly forbidden."

Ovid smiled. His mother's religious convictions began and ended with
the inorganic matter of the earth.