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“You should not have gone up to college so soon; you were tired out with sick-nursing and being up at night. I ought to have insisted on your taking a thorough rest before you left Leghorn.”

“Oh, Padre, what’s the use of that? I couldn’t stop in that miserable house af

ter mother died. Julia would have driven me mad!”

Julia was his eldest step-brother’s wife, and a thorn in his side.

“I should not have wished you to stay with your relatives,” Monta

“I can’t help it.” There was a weary sound in Arthur’s voice, and the Padre noticed it at once.

“You should not have gone up to college so soon; you were tired out with sick-nursing and being up at night. I ought to have insisted on your taking a thorough rest before you left Leghorn.”

“Oh, Padre, what’s the use of that? I couldn’t stop in that miserable house after mother died. Julia would have driven me mad!”

Julia was his eldest step-brother’s wife, and a thorn in his side.

“I should not have wished you to stay with your relatives,” Montanelli answered gently. “I am sure it would have been the worst possible thing for you. But I wish you could have accepted the invitation of your English doctor friend; if you had spent a month in his house you would have been more fit to study.”

“No, Padre, I shouldn’t indeed! The Warrens are very good and kind, but t

hey don’t understand; and then they are sorry for me,–I can see it in all their faces,–and they would try to console me, and talk about mother. Gemma wouldn’t, of course; she always knew what not to say, even when we were babies; but the others would. And it isn’t only that—-”

“What is it then, my son?”

Arthur pulled off some blossoms from a drooping foxglove stem and crushed them nervously in his hand.

nelli answered gently. “I am sure it would have been the worst possible thing for you. But I wish you could have accepted the invitation of your English doctor friend; if you had spent a month in his house you would have been more fit to study.”

“No, Padre, I shouldn’t indeed! The Warrens are very good an

“I can’t help it.” There was a weary sound in Arthur’s voice, and the Padre noticed it at once.

“You should not have gone up to college so soon; you were tired out with sick-nursing and being up at night. I ought to have insisted on your taking a thorough rest before you left Leghorn.”

“Oh, Padre, what’s the use of that? I couldn’t stop in that miserable house after mother died. Julia would have driven me mad!”

Julia was his eldest step-brother’s wife, and a thorn in his side.

“I should not have wished you to stay with your relatives,” Montanelli answered gently. “I am sure it would have been the worst possible thing for you. But I wish you could have accepted the invitation of your English doctor friend; if you had spent a month in his house you would have been more fit to study.”

“No, Padre, I shouldn’t indeed! The Warrens are very good and kind, but they don’t understand; and then they are sorry for me,–I can see it in all their faces,–and they would try to console me, and talk about mother. Gemma wouldn’t, of course; she always knew what not to say, even when we were babies; but the others would. And it isn’t only that—-”

“What is it then, my son?”

Arthur pulled off some blossoms from a drooping foxglove stem and crushed them nervously in his hand.

d kind, but they don’t understand; and then they are sorry for me,–I can see it in all their faces,–and they would try to console me, and talk about mother. Gemma wouldn’t, of course; she always knew what not to say, even when we were babies; but the others would. And it isn’t only that—-”

“What is it then, my son?”

Arthur pulled off some blossoms from a drooping foxglove stem and crushed them nervously in his hand.