sort of way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle, that makes me feel half the time as if I were playing soldier in a lady-like fashion.  But what a budget this is.  How shocked the people here would be.  They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker, like the Bible,—­and here am I crushing down Rome, and raising Paris on top of it.  Indeed, I can’t help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating.  It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your powers of enjoyment.  Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous letters, won’t you; for I do love you dearly.

Your loving daughter,

Mae.

Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, like a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris gloves, singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted manner.

“Why, you look like a different girl,” cried Eric, as she entered the parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting.  “Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, and Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you are left to my tender care; will you ride or walk?”

“How can you ask?  My feet are quite wild.  No wonder I am a different girl.  Are we not going to the Pincian hill to look at the live world and people?  I have just unlocked the stop-gates and let the blood bound in my veins as it wants to.”

“It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should say from your long face to-day.”

“O, it has only been trying to keep step with the march of the ages, or some such stately tread, but it was hard work, and now the dear life of me hops, skips and jumps, like this,” and Mae seized her brother and danced across the room, stopping very near Mr. Mann, who stood with his back to them, drumming on the window pane.  She looked at him quizzically and half raised her eyebrows.

Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his outspoken way:  “You owe him an apology, Mae, for this morning’s rudeness.”

Mr. Mann turned quickly.  “I am surprised, Eric.  Let your sister find out for herself when she is rude.”

“Bless me,” cried Eric, “what is the row?”

Mae looked determined.  “Are you going to the Pincian with us?” she asked.

“No, I am going to stay home.”

“Well, good-bye, then.  Come, Eric.”  The door closed behind them.

Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched them walk away.  Mae, with her eager, restless, fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric, with his boy-man air and his student swing and happy-go-lucky toss of his head.  Mr. Mann smiled and then he sighed.  “That’s a good boy, so square and fair and merry—­and a queer girl,” he added.  “Rome isn’t the place for her.  She must get away, though why I should take care for her, or worry about her, little vixen.  I don’t see.”  Still he smiled as one would over a very winning, very wicked child, and shortly after took his hat and went to the Pincio, after all.