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 in her and the carrying out of my own secret plans, which can best be accomplished with the aid of a sympathetic mother. I wanted to reach Taormina as soon as possible, so as to be on the spot when the mater arrives. Naturally I did not openly oppose the will of a mere Brown against that of Brown's mistress. I merely hinted that there was said to be a good deal of white dust in Siracusa, and that it was hot. I also mentioned, inadvertently, that in some of the hotels there were mice. It was a blow to hear that Miss Randolph liked mice; but there was encouragement in Aunt Mary's "Oh!" of horror; and I lived in hope.

In order not to waste a moment, I turned the car aside on the way to Siracusa, and drove along a white road between olive-clad hills to the ancient Greek stronghold of Fort Euryelus, which once guarded the western extremity of that great table-land which was the splendid city of Siracusa. You, who know your Thucydides better than I do, are probably well up in all the thrilling events which took place there four hundred years before Christ; but the Goddess depended largely upon my lips for bread-crumbs of knowledge, and her awed interest in the perfectly preserved magazines for food, the subterranean galleries, and the secret sallyport betrayed to the enemy by a traitor, was pretty to see. From a tower of piled stones I pointed away towards Etna with Taormina at its feet and said, "There—there lies the beauty-spot of Sicily." Thus I got in my entering wedge.

It was four o'clock when we finally reached Siracusa,