Part 66 (2/2)

”Leo, why will you not take any of my money?” Nina exclaimed, but with shy and downcast face.

”Your money!” he said, laughing. ”You talk as if you were a Russian princess, Ntoniella!”

He drew aside the reeded blind of one of the windows and went out into the soft air; both land and sea--that beautiful stretch of s.h.i.+ning blue--seemed quivering in the heat and abundant sunlight of June.

”Nina, Nina!” he called, ”you must make haste; the _Risposta_ will soon be coming near, and we must be down in town to welcome Maurice and Francie when they come ash.o.r.e.”

In a second or two she was ready, and he also.

”There are so many things I shall have to tell Maurice,” he said, just as they were about to leave the house. ”But do you think I shall be able to tell him, Ntoniella? No. He must guess. What you have been to me, what you are to me, how can I tell him or any one?”

He took both her hands in his and looked long and lovingly into her upturned face.

”_Ntonie, tu si state a sciorta mia!_” he said, meaning thereby that good-fortune had befallen him at last. It was a pretty speech, and Nina, with her beautiful dark eyes fixed on his, answered him in the same dialect, and almost in the same terms, if in a lower voice:

”_E a sciorta mia si tu!_”

THE END.

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