"It is on the Arno. But how often have I wished for power to depict the lovely Lake of Como, as we could see it by night from the windows of our villa--the shore all dark, or dotted only by the lights in many a palace and dwelling, the snowy summits of the Splugen Alps rising against the starlit sky, and the oars of the gondoliers flashing as their little vessels shot across the sheet of silent water." "You are quite an enthusiast!" said the officer, smiling; and at that moment, with her sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks, the usually pale girl looked radiantly beautiful; but her dark eyes drooped, and she replied-- "I did so love Como and our pleasant picnics to Bellaggio and other places, where the orange-trees overhang the water so closely that the golden fruit dipped in it from time to time, when the laden branches were stirred by the passing wind." "Now you will surely agree with me, that when contrasted with such scenery as you describe, our Cornish rock-pillars and mines are but stupid affairs?" "Ah, no--I cannot assent to that; there is Bottalick Mine, for example, where the gloomy precipices of slate are hewn into such fantastic shapes, and the great engine, perched on the ledge of a terrible cliff, enables the miner to work below the sea. Oh, think of that, to be quarrying for copper and tin in damp grottoes and cells four hundred and eighty feet below the ocean, and to hear its waves--the same waves that dash against Cape Cornwall--rolling the mighty boulders in thunder on the bluffs overhead!" "Have _you_ been down and heard all that?" "No," replied Sybil, blushing for her own energy and enthusiasm. "How then----" "Denzil has been down often." "Denzil again," said the stranger with a smile, and perhaps the faintest tone of pique; "you are surely very fond of this Denzil." "Fond--I love him dearly!" "A candid admission." "He is my only brother." "I am so glad to hear that he is a brother, and not--not----" "What?" "A cousin or--friend." Sybil felt that the conversation was wandering from the picturesque, and now said, a little hastily, "I must bid you good morning--my way lies there," she added, pointing westward. "And mine also; so far, at least, as the high road--allow me to have the pleasure of carrying your camp-stool." "Many thanks." "Do you reside in this neighbourhood?" he asked, after a pause. "Yes--a little way from this," she replied, evasively. "_I_ am on a visit to an old Indian friend--General Trecarrel," said the stranger, in a tone and manner calculated to invite confidence; but Sybil instantly became reserved. Her absent parent, she knew not why, had ever most sedulously avoided the General and all his family, and her mamma had apparently acquiesced in this, for they knew that the General would at once, in the spurious "Captain Devereaux," recognise Richard Trevelyan. "You, perhaps, know the Trecarrels?" added her companion.