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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 337

CHAPTER XLIV.

POETRY, PROSE, AND THE DEAD SWIMMER.

FROM Verona to Como is a day's journey. Under any circumstances, there is no monotony in it, but traveling in pleasant companionship it is perhaps one of the most delightful of continental railway journeys. The scenery is never uninteresting, and there are always in the distance fine ranges of snow-capped mountains.

The happy English party from Venice, it need hardly be said, found the trip full of a new and special interest. Dolly was radiant. It needed no psychological student to dis- cover that Sam Swynford was the selection of her heart. If he had been wise in his estimation of female character, he ought to have discovered in his earliest acquaintanceship with Jenny's lively sister that her " stand off-ishness " and sallies of wit at his expense were only feminine indications of interest, if not love. It was perhaps a little feline, while she purred, to make her lover conscious of an occasional scratch, Had the amiable young stockbroker responded with the manful intimation that he was not to be wounded with impunity nor without resentment, it is quite possible that the shadow of Philip Forsyth might never have fallen upon Dolly's fateful youth. She had in her secret heart loved Swynford none the less that she had occasionally made him suffer. It was only the trifling of a somewhat coquettish nature. Swynford had, in slave- like worship, flung himself at her feet, and she had placed her foot upon his neck, not viciously, but with something of

the pride of conquest. She would have appreciated from

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