Leonora D'Orco: A Historical RomanceJames, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
History
Leonora D'Orco: A Historical Romance
James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford)
Italy -- History -- 1492-1559 -- Fiction
Lorenzo smiled, for he thought that he knew of whom she was thinking,
and he remembered that, even in the bustle of the march, he had passed
many an hour sitting listlessly on his horse, thinking of her.
"Well, I did not find her very easily, my lord," continued Antonio,
"for it is a curious labyrinth of a place--villa, and gardens, and
all--but a last I caught sight of something like a white robe just in
the shade of a tall old cypress tree. The beautiful lady was very
flattering to me; and I am a personable sort of a man, I believe, not
easily to be forgotten when once seen. But she remembered me in a
minute, and started up and ran forward to meet me, crying out, 'What
news--what news, Antonio? Is he safe--is he well?' Then she gave me
her hand to kiss, and I kissed it, and put your letter into it, and
then she kissed the letter; but it was a hypocritical kiss, that, for
she tore it the next minute in a very barbarous manner, in order to
get at the inside. Then she kissed it again and read it. Then she read
it again, and she did not speak a word for nearly half an hour, but
went back and picked out little bits of the letter, just as a child
picks the nice bits out of a pie."
"Out upon you, Antonio!" cried Lorenzo; "here the dear girl has been
showing all the warm feelings of her heart only for you to laugh at."
"Indeed, I was more like to cry, for she herself cried in the end, and
the tears flowed over the long black lashes and fell upon the letter,
and had I been a crying person, I must fain have wept to keep her
company. It is very funny, my lord, that people cry when they are
extremely happy, for I am quite certain that Donna Leonora was not
crying for sorrow then, and yet she cried as if her eyes were
fountains of diamonds; and then she wiped them with her kerchief, and
turned away her head and laughed, and said, 'This is very foolish,
Antonio, but I have been dreaming of this letter's coming so long, and
now it is so much sweeter than I thought it would be, that--' and then
she forgot what she was going to say, or perhaps she never intended to
say anything more; but I understand very well what she meant, for all
that."
Antonio paused, but Lorenzo was not yet half satisfied. He taxed the
man's memory to the utmost. I am not sure he did not tax his
imagination also to tell him every word, and to describe every look of
Leonora. Then he made him speak of the villa; and there Antonio was
quite at home, for, during the three days he had stayed, nothing had
escaped his attention. He knew every corner in the house, and every
walk or terrace in the gardens; and a strange, wild, rambling place it
must have been, the manifold intricacies of which spoke but too
plainly the terrible and lawless times which existed at the time of
its construction, and which, alas! existed still.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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