child stirred from the correct pose she had been keeping, and smiled
politely.

"I don't think they deserve a real dictionary word like that," said
Colville. "I was simply mooning. If there was anything definite in my
mind, I was wishing that I was looking down on the Wabash in Dos Vaches,
instead of the Arno in Florence."

"Oh! And I supposed you must be indulging all sorts of historical
associations with the place. Effie and I have been walking through the
Via de' Bardi, where Romola lived, and I was bringing her back over the
Ponte Vecchio, so as to impress the origin of Florence on her mind."

"Is that what makes Miss Effie hate it?" asked Colville, looking at the
child, whose youthful resemblance to her mother was in all things so
perfect that a fantastic question whether she could ever have had any
other parent swept through him. Certainly, if Mrs. Bowen were to marry
again, there was nothing in this child's looks to suggest the idea of a
predecessor to the second husband.

"Effie doesn't hate any sort of useful knowledge," said her mother half
jestingly. "She's just come to me from school at Vevay."

"Oh, then, I think she might," persisted Colville. "Don't you hate the
origin of Florence a little?" he asked of the child.

"I don't know enough about it," she answered, with a quick look of
question at her mother, and checking herself in a possibly indiscreet
smile.