away as soon as she had further recognised, as she
was speedily able to do, that she, Susan Shepherd
the name with which Milly for the most part
amused herself was not anybody else. She had
renounced that character; she had now no life to
lead; and she honestly believed that she was thus
supremely equipped for leading Milly's own. No
other person whatever, she was sure, had to an
equal degree this qualification, and it was really to
assert it that she fondly embarked.

Many things, though not in many weeks, had
come and gone since then, and one of the best of
them, doubtless, had been the voyage itself, by
the happy southern course, to the succession of
Mediterranean ports, with the dazzled wind-up at
Naples. Two or three others had preceded this;
incidents, indeed rather lively marks, of their last
fortnight at home, and one of which had determined
on Mrs. Stringham's part a rush to New York, forty-
eight breathless hours there, previous to her final
rally. But the great sustained sea-light had drunk
up the rest of the picture, so that for many days
other questions and other possibilities sounded with
as little effect as a trio of penny whistles might
sound in a Wagner overture. It was the Wagner
overture that practically prevailed, up through Italy,
where Milly had already been, still further up and
across the Alps, which were also partly known to
Mrs. Stringham; only perhaps "taken" to a time
not wholly congruous, hurried in fact on account

[[127]]

p126 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p127w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p128

v?