the success of Captain Horn’s present expedition.  What Mrs. Cliff already possessed was a fortune sufficient for the life she desired to lead in her native town.  What she was waiting for was the privilege of going back and making that fortune known.  As to the increase of her fortune she had but small belief.  If it should come, she might change her plans, but the claims of the native Peruvians should not be forgotten.  Even if the present period of secrecy should be terminated by the news of the non-success of Captain Horn, she intended to include, among her expenses, a periodical remittance to some charitable association in Peru for the benefit of the natives.

The Christmas holidays passed, January was half gone, and Edna had received no news from Captain Horn.  She had hoped that before leaving South.  America and beginning his long voyage across the Atlantic, he would touch at some port from which he might send her a letter, which, coming by steamer, would reach her before she could expect the arrival of the brig.  But no letter had come.  She had arranged with a commercial agency to telegraph to her the moment the Miranda should arrive in any French port, but no message had come, and no matter what else she was doing, it seemed to Edna as if she were always expecting such a message.  Sometimes she thought that this long delay must mean disaster, and at such times she immediately set to work to reason out the matter.  From Acapulco to Cape Horn, up through the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic to France, was a long voyage for a sailing-vessel, and to the time necessary for this she must add days, and perhaps weeks, of labor at the caves, besides all sorts of delays on the voyage.  Like Ralph, she had an unbounded faith in the captain.  He might not bring her one bar of gold, he might meet with all sorts of disasters, but, whenever her mind was in a healthy condition, she expected him to come to France, as he had said he would.

She now began to feel that she was losing a great deal of time.  Paris was all very well, but it was not everything.  When news should come to her, it might be necessary for her to go to America.  She could not tell what would be necessary, and she might have to leave Europe with nothing but Paris to remember.  There was no good objection to travel on the Continent, for, if the Miranda should arrive while she was not in Paris, she would not be so far away that a telegram could not quickly bring her back.  So she listened to Mrs. Cliff and her own desires, and the party journeyed to Italy, by the way of Geneva and Bern.

Ralph was delighted with the change, for Professor Barre, his tutor, had consented to go with them, and, during these happy days in Italy, he was the preceptor of the whole party.  They went to but few places that he had not visited before, and they saw but little that he could not talk about to their advantage.  But, no matter what they did, every day Edna expected a message, and every day, except Sunday, she went to the banker’s to look over the maritime news in the newspapers, and she so arranged her affairs that she could start for France at an hour’s notice.