When she was a little girl in Boston (where Mrs. Merriam had insisted upon living), Angela used to sit on her father’s knee; and as he curled her yellow hair over his fingers he wove romances of the Golden West, reluctantly deserted for his wife’s sake; and though many illusions had broken like bright bubbles, this ideal still glittered before Angela’s eyes.  She had been promised by her father that she should visit California with him, when “Mother brought her back from Europe”; but he had died, and mother had not brought her back; so now she was going to make the pilgrimage alone.  Not only did she intend to see the places her father had described, but when she had seen all and could choose, she meant to buy land and make a home for herself, her first real home.

Wherever she decided to live, the house must be like the one where her father had been born—­long and low built of adobe; there must be a patio, with a fountain in the middle; and the rooms must be kept cool by the roof of a veranda, shading the windows like a great overhanging eyelid.  Lovely flowers she would have, of course, but the garden must be as unlike an Italian garden as possible.  Italy was beautiful, but she did not wish to be reminded of that country, or any other in Europe where she had wandered in search of forgetfulness.

She had little fear that ghosts of the past would come to haunt her in her new home, for though the Prince di Sereno had once cared for her in his way, she had struck at his pride and made him hate her in the end.  At last he had been glad to let her go out of his life, for she had made arrangements by which he kept more than half her money.  There was no danger that he would try to snatch her back again; and as for European friends and acquaintances, it was unlikely that such worldly persons would care to come to the place she meant to select.  It would be far from the paths of tourists.

The eight-day voyage passed pleasantly for Angela.  She had spoken to no one except stewards and stewardesses for, taking her meals on deck, she had not come into contact with other passengers.  The mourning she wore for her mother, who had died four months before in London, seemed to set her apart from others, though had it not been for the cause of her mourning, probably she would not now be on her way to America.  It was a few weeks after Mrs. Merriam’s death, when she had recovered from the shock which was hardly sorrow, that Angela said to herself:  “Now she is beyond being grieved by anything I do, and I can go away—­for good.”  For the girl had been under the frail cold woman’s sway, as the strong man, Franklin Merriam, had been in his time; and Mrs. Merriam had derived such pleasure from having a daughter who was a Princess di Sereno that Angela could hardly have found courage to deprive her of it.

At home, both in the country and at her palace in Rome, the Princess had been waited on by two French maids, one of whom dressed her, while the other kept her belongings in order.  When she travelled, as she often did, one or both went with her; to Egypt; to Algeria; to Russia; to Paris; or to England.  But “Mrs. May” had no maid; and, landing in New York, it seemed that she was the only person who did not meet with a welcome from friends on the dock.