which his daughter gives her hand to Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. “Ah,” continued the Count, mournfully, “you shrink—you recoil. He thus submitted to your choice is indeed unworthy of you. You are scarce in the spring of life. He is in its waning autumn. Youth loves youth. He does not aspire to your love. All that he can say is, love is not the only joy of the heart—it is joy to raise from ruin a beloved father—joy to restore, to a land poor in all but memories, a chief in whom it reverences a line of heroes. These are the joys I offer to you—you, a daughter, and an Italian maid. Still silent! Oh speak to me!” Certainly this Count Peschiera knew well how woman is to be wooed and won; and never was woman more sensitive to those high appeals which most move all true earnest womanhood, than was the young Violante. Fortune favoured him in the moment chosen. Harley was wrenched away from her hopes, and love a word erased from her language. In the void of the world, her father’s image alone stood clear and visible. And she who from infancy had so pined to serve that father, who had first learned to dream of Harley as that father’s friend! She could restore to him all for which the exile sighed; and by a sacrifice of self! Self-sacrifice, ever in itself such a temptation to the noble! Still, in the midst of the confusion and disturbance of her mind, the idea of marriage with another seemed so terrible and revolting, that she could not at once conceive it; and still that instinct of openness and honour, which pervaded all her character, warned even her inexperience that there was something wrong in this clandestine appeal to herself. Again the Count besought her to speak; and with an effort she said, irresolutely— “If it be as you say, it is not for me to answer you; it is for my father.” “Nay,” replied Peschiera. “Pardon, if I contradict you. Do you know so little of your father as to suppose that he will suffer his interest to dictate to his pride. He would refuse, perhaps, even to receive my visit—to hear my explanations; but certainly he would refuse to buy back his inheritance by the sacrifice of his daughter to one whom he has deemed his foe, and whom the mere disparity of years would incline the world to say he had made the barter of his personal ambition. But if I could go to him sanctioned by you—if I could say your daughter overlooks what the father might deem an obstacle—she has consented to accept my hand of her own free choice—she unites her happiness, and blends her prayers, with mine,—then, indeed, I could not fail of success: and Italy would pardon my errors, and bless your name. Ah! Signorina, do not think of me save as an instrument towards the fulfilment of duties so high and sacred—think but of your ancestors, your father, your native land, and reject not the proud occasion to prove how you revere them all!”