The other is that English girl of seventeen, shrinking timidly from the crowd, and leaning with her hands clasped over her father's arm, apparently listening only to the waltz, and unconscious that every eye is fixed upon her in admiration. She has lived all her life in Italy, but has been bred by an English mother, in a retired villa of the Val d'Arno--her character and feelings are those of her race, and nothing of Italy about her, but the glow of its sunny clime in the else spotless snow of her complexion, and an enthusiasm in her downcast eye that you may account for as you will--it is not English! Her form has just ripened into womanhood. The bust still wants fullness, and the step confidence. Her forehead is rather too intellectual to be maidenly; but the droop of her singularly long eye-lashes over eyes that elude the most guarded glance of your own, and the modest expression of her lips closed but not pressed together, redeem her from any look of conscious superiority, and convince you that she only seeks to be unobserved. A single ringlet of golden brown hair falls nearly to her shoulder, catching the light upon its glossy curves with an effect that would enchant a painter. Lilies of the valley, the first of the season, are in her bosom and her hair, and she might be the personification of the flower for delicacy and beauty. You are only disappointed in talking with her. She expresses herself with a nerve and self-command, which, from a slight glance, you did not anticipate. She shrinks from the general eye, but in conversation she is the high-minded woman more than the timid child for which her manner seems to mark her. In either light, she is the very presence of purity. She stands by the side of her not less beautiful rival, like a Madonna by a Magdalen--both seem not at home in the world, but only one could have dropped from heaven. LETTER XLVIII. VALLOMBROSA--ITALIAN OXEN--CONVENT--SERVICE IN THE CHAPEL--HOUSE OCCUPIED BY MILTON. I left Florence for Vallombrosa at daylight on a warm summer's morning, in company with four ladies. We drove along the northern bank of the Arno for four or five miles, passing several beautiful villas, belonging to the Florentine nobles; and, crossing the river by a picturesque bridge, took the road to the village of Pelago, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and is the farthest point to which a carriage can mount. It is about fourteen miles from Florence, and the ascent thence to the convent is nearly three. We alighted in the centre of the village, in the midst of a ragged troop of women and children, among whom were two idiot beggars; and, while the preparations were making for our ascent, we took chairs in the open square around a basket of cherries, and made a delicious luncheon of fruit and bread, very much to the astonishment of some two hundred spectators.