"And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his ward was silently caressing, "I must take Leonard away. Adieu! all of you, till to-morrow at dinner. Miss Violante, is the doll to have blue or black eyes?" Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to Lady Lansmere, and nestled to that lady's side as if in refuge from unworthy insult. CHAPTER XII. "Let the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to his servant; "I and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an occasion to serve your old friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?" "Serve them! O yes." And there instantly occurred to Leonard the recollection of Violante's words when on leaving his quiet village he had sighed to part from all those he loved; and the little dark-eyed girl had said, proudly, yet consolingly, "But to SERVE those you love!" He turned to L'Estrange with beaming, inquisitive eyes. "I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would vouch for your honor as my own. I am about to prove my words, and to confide the secrets which your penetration has indeed divined;--our friend is not what he seems." Harley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars of the exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of a kinsman he had trusted, partly through the influence of a wife he had loved, he had been driven into schemes which he believed bounded to the emancipation of Italy from a foreign yoke by the united exertions of her best and bravest sons. "A noble ambition," interrupted Leonard, manfully. "And pardon me, my lord, I should not have thought that you would speak of it in a tone that implies blame."