All was calm and still around them. Mr. Rhind sat reading a little farther down the hill. A servant girl, who, with a sort of adventurous spirit which often characterizes the peasantry of that part of the country, had agreed to quit her home at Borgonovo, and accompany the strangers into distant lands, was plying the busy needle within call. The sleepy evening sunshine and the blue shadow crept in longer and longer lines over the short turf and the scattered myrtle bushes, and overhead, stretched out like a canopy, the broad dark branches of four or five gigantic pines, while, at a little distance along the face of the hill, was seen peeping out a Palladian villa, with large chesnut trees, serving rather to break the hard straight lines than to conceal that a house stood there. The villa indeed was uninhabited, for its owner had retired into the city for the cooler and more rainy months of winter; but still it gave to a scene unusually wild that air of habitation and society which, under most circumstances, is pleasant from the associations produced. Their conversation was not gay, but it was cheerful--far more cheerful than it had been since last they met; for memory of the dead had darkened the horizon behind them, and frequent apprehension had spread clouds over the prospect before. At several places where they had stopped by the way, causes of alarm had occurred; and even at Piacenza they had found reason to doubt their security. A man, who had known Mr. Rhind in Padua, had met him in the streets, and told him a distorted tale of poor Manucci's death and Julia's flight, declaring boldly that the old man had been addicted to unlawful arts, and that it was suspected his granddaughter had aided him in their pursuit. He added, however--what neutralized in the mind of his hearer the effect of his tale, as far as poor Julia was concerned--that she was clearly guilty, because she had never been known to come to confession or seek absolution of the priest. Now, however, both Gowrie and her he loved felt in security, for he had taken measures to guard against surprise; and the memory of the loss she had lately sustained had been somewhat softened by time and the rapid passing of many stirring events. Gowrie strove to cheer her, to remove apprehension, to efface the traces of the first deep sorrow she had known; and though gaiety would have jarred with her feelings, yet a cheerful tone mingled with deep thought, will often find its way to a heart which would reject direct consolation and fly from painful merriment. On the preceding day she and Gowrie had read together the papers which had been intrusted to him by Manucci, and the perusal had been sad; for there she found the tale of all that her parents had suffered, and though she could not but rejoice to feel that no disparity between her own rank and that of her husband could make his friends look cold upon her, yet the impression--at least the first impression--was melancholy.