P.S.  I have thought this very moment of the nicest plan of all.  In the vineyards here they put horrid looking figures, like men with red beards and arms stretched out, to frighten away the birds.  If you will send me some red stuff and some yellow, I can make figures a great deal more frightful, and they will sell for a great deal.  Perhaps in this way I can pay you half the money, and I’m sure I shall find something else to do by and by.

     I am again and always,

     Your loving niece,

     EMMA.

Fani had been sitting for some time in the library, awaiting with a beating heart the coming of Mrs. Stanhope.  When the door opened, he sprang to his feet; he had learned that that was the proper thing to do when a lady entered the room.  Mrs. Stanhope took a seat on the sofa, and motioned him to take a cricket and sit down by her.

“Now tell me all about it, Fani,” she began.  “Tell me the exact truth about what happened yesterday.  What made you think of going out on the water, and how did you manage it?  Tell me the whole story just as it was.  Keep nothing back.”

Fani obeyed.  He went way back to the plans which Emma and he had made before he left home so that he might become an artist.  How pleased he had been to take drawing-lessons, and how they made him love drawing more and more.  How glad Emma had been at his progress, and how she had urged him to tell Mrs. Stanhope how he felt about his future career.  Now came the most important point, and Fani related it very clearly.  He wished to make a picture of the old ruin, because if he got a prize for it he thought Mrs. Stanhope would look more favorably on his adoption of art as a business; and Emma had thought out a way of getting a good view of it from the river.  Then followed the mishap, which occurred because Emma did not know the strength of the current, nor understand how different the river was from the lake on which she had been in the habit of rowing.  Fani told the whole story faithfully.  Mrs. Stanhope listened in silence to the end, and then said briefly,—­

“Very well; you may go, Fani.”

In the hall behind one of the pillars stood Emma, impatient to hear the result of the interview.

“Well? well?” she asked eagerly.

“Well; it’s just as it was before; I don’t know any more than I did.”

“Did she scold you very hard?  Did she say anything about me?  For I was the one to blame.”

“No, indeed; Mrs. Stanhope never scolds; but she is very angry with me, I know, for she did not speak to me when I had told her all about it.  Generally she talks a good deal to me about all sorts of things; even when I have done something to displease her.  I am sure there is no help for us.”

Emma sighed.  She knew too well how much she was to blame for this unfortunate state of things.

Three days passed.  The house was more quiet than it had been before since the children came.  A cloud was over them all.  No one laughed or talked freely or cared for amusement.  All seemed waiting for some unpleasant thing that was going to happen.