"Lord Edgarmond was my father. I was born in Italy: his first wife was a Roman; and Lucy, whom they intended for your bride, is my sister, by an English lady--by my father's second marriage. Now, hear me! I lost my mother ere I was ten years old, and, as it was her dying wish that my education should be finished ere I went to England, I was confided to an aunt at Florence, with whom I lived till I was fifteen. My tastes and talents were formed ere her death induced Lord Edgarmond to have me with him. He lived at a small town in Northumberland, which cannot, I suppose, give any idea of England; yet was all I knew of it for six years. My mother, from my infancy, impressed on me the misery of not living in Italy; my aunt had often added, that this fear of quitting her country had broken her heart. My good aunt herself was persuaded, too, that a Catholic would be condemned to perdition for settling in a Protestant country; and though I was not infected by this fear, the thought of going to England alarmed me much. I set forth with an inexplicable sense of sadness. The woman sent for me did not understand a word of Italian. I spoke it now and then to console my poor Thérésina, who had consented to follow me, though she wept incessantly at leaving her country; but I knew that I must unlearn the habit of breathing the sweet sounds so welcome even to foreigners, and, for me, associated with all the recollections of my childhood. I approached the north unable to comprehend the cause of my own changed and sombre sensations. It was five years since I had seen my father. I hardly recognized him when I reached his house. Methought his countenance was very grave; yet he received me with tenderness, and told me I was extremely like my mother. My half-sister, then three years of age, was brought to me: her skin was fairer, her silken curls more golden than I had ever seen before; we have hardly any such faces in Italy; she astonished and interested me from the first; that same day I cut off some of her ringlets for a bracelet, which I have preserved ever since. At last my step-mother appeared, and the impression made on me by her first look grew and deepened during the years I passed with her. Lady Edgarmond was exclusively attached to her native country; and my father, whom she overruled, sacrificed a residence in London or Edinburgh to her wishes. She was a cold, dignified, silent person, whose eyes could turn affectionately on her child, but who usually wore so positive an air, that it appeared impossible to make her understand a new idea, or even one phrase to which she had not been accustomed. She met me politely, but I soon perceived that my whole manner amazed her, and that she proposed to change it, if she could. Not a word was said during dinner, though some neighbors had been invited. I was so tired of this silence, that, in the midst of our meal, I strove to converse a little with an old gentleman who sat beside me.