A ROVING GIRL. 333 



while she was at home during the next two years, and to 

 this day they who saw her tell me that she was as gentle 

 and lovely as ever was daughter of Eve ; that she went 

 back to school with reluctance ; that she parted with her 

 father in an agony of tears. This was some years ago. 

 I have seen that girl, that fair-haired child of my old 

 neighbor, a ballet-dancer on the boards at the San Carlo 

 in Naples; and when I sought her out and wanted to send 

 her home, she laughed at me, and ridiculed the idea of 

 going home to the old farm-house." 



"What became of her?" 



" I wish I knew. The old man never asks me if I do 

 know, but he looks so wistfully at me of a Sunday in 

 church and when we happen to meet on the road, that I 

 do wish I had some intelligence to give him of her, if 

 only that she is dead. That would be a comfort. I saw 

 her again once under odd circumstances. The Effendi 

 and I were in Alexandria, at the Europa, and Caesare, 

 the landlord, asked us one morning if we would go to the 

 opera in the evening. It was in the days of Said Pasha, 

 when Egypt had not as yet been Europeanized, as Ismail 

 calls it. An opera in Egypt struck us as odd, and we 

 said, ' Yes, get us a box ;' and then went off for the day to 

 the Effendi's excavations in the catacombs. In the even- 

 ing, after dinner, we had forgotten all about it ; but Caesare 

 reminded us, and we started, with two Arabs carrying lan- 

 terns, to find the opera-house in a narrow street. As we 

 approached we saw them lighting up the entrance, and, 

 after a delay of five minutes in a small cloak-room, we 

 were ushered to our box. I give you my word we two 

 were the solitary persons in the house, and we had Lucia 

 for once to ourselves. Was it not so, Effendi ?" 



" Exactly so." 



