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 called to them some welcoming words in Italian. That was as far as she got in their own tongue, however; for she fell back upon French as they came nearer her, and in that and some fragments of English, the greeting was completed. Each of the brothers formally kissed the back of her extended hand; then the little group turned to the railing, and the girl began to chatter in phrases from the three languages just employed, though the sound, and not the meaning of what she said, was all that came to the trio looking on.

"Shouldn't you offer a maiden from your own shores a rescue, Eugene?" the Englishman inquired. "That's too nice a little girl to be playing Red Riding Hood so gayly."

"She won't be eaten," his friend rejoined. "She's twenty-one, and as for my offering a rescue, American girls don't encourage rescues on the part of middle-aged strangers—though I'm not wholly a stranger, it's true. Her mother brought letters to me and they've been to dine with me once or twice since they came to Raona three weeks ago. Mrs. Ambler is a widow; the daughter yonder is her only child, and both of them are seeing this part of Europe for the