"You know it very well," answered Claire, quietly. "I am going to be an artist, and perhaps, if God helps me, to make a name."
"Yes, I know," said Marion, gloomily. "Yours is a noble ambition, and I think you will succeed."
"I hope so," responded Claire, looking out on the sunset with her earnest eyes. "At least I know that I have resolution and perseverance, and I used to hear my father say that with those things even mediocre talent could do much."
"And yours is not mediocre. Yet you talk of being sorry to leave here, with such a prospect before you."
"Such a battle, too. And people say that the world is very hard and stern to those who fight it single-handed."
"So much the better!" cried Marion, flinging back her head with an air of defiance. "There will be so much the more glory in triumph."
"You never seem to think of failure," observed Claire, with a smile. "But now Helen must tell us what she desires her future to be."
"Mine?" said Helen. "Oh! I leave all such things as fortune and fame to you and Marion. I mean only to be happy."
"To be happy!" repeated Marion. "Well, I admire your modesty. You have set up for yourself a much more difficult aim than either Claire's or my own. And how do you mean to be happy? That is the next question."
"I don't know," replied Helen, with a laugh. "I just mean to go home to enjoy myself; that is all. And how happy it makes me to think that you are both going with me!"
"Dear little Helen!" said Claire, caressingly. "But it will not make you unhappy to hear that I am not going with you, will it? I have just found out that I can not go."
"Not go!" repeated Helen. The deepest surprise and disappointment were written on her face. "O, Claire, it is impossible that you can mean it--that you can be so unkind! Why do you say such a thing?"
"I say it because it is true, dear; though it is a greater disappointment to me than to you. I have just had a letter from my guardian, telling me he has found an opportunity to send me abroad with a lady, an acquaintance of his own; and I have no choice but to go."
"I should think you would be delighted to find such an opportunity," said Marion. "But surely the lady is not going to Rome at this season?"
"No: she is going to Germany for the summer, and to Italy in the autumn; which is a very good thing, for I shall see the galleries of Dresden and Munich before I go to Rome. Of course I am glad--I must be glad--to find the opportunity at once; but I had promised myself the pleasure of a quiet, happy month with Helen and you, and I am sorry to lose it."