The surrender of Mantua put an end to all idea of further resistance. Italy allowed herself quietly to be plundered of all her most precious and holy ornaments, even including the famous image of our Lady of Loretto, and Hamilton, in disgust abandoning the wretched land, returned to his own free and happy country. His paternal estates were considerable, and he resolved to devote himself in private to the welfare of those who were dependant upon him, and in public to the preservation of that liberty which he believed to be the basis of all that ennobles man. He distinguished himself in parliament, at first, perhaps, by too great vehemence, on the liberal side; but his own clear head and maturer judgment soon tempered what might have been extravagant in his enthusiasm, and at the age of nine-and-twenty he was as practically useful a member of society, as he had originally been a romantic advocate of liberty. Ellen, who long ago had accidentally heard the history of his achievements, looked on him with a certain degree of respect, as the hero who, to her girlish imagination, had realised the stories of Paladins of old. It was with pleasure, therefore, that she found herself seated by him at dinner. His appearance and his address did not disappoint her. His flashing eye seemed formed “to threaten and command;” his athletic form might well, single-handed, have kept at bay a host of common men; while she could imagine that from those expressive lips might flow streams of eloquence to sway the listening senate. Still he was peculiarly simple and straight-forward: with all his fame about him he had a frank manner, as though what was said by him, carried with it no more weight than if it had been uttered by the most undistinguished individual in the room. Yet every thing he said was well said; all showed reflection, reading, sound judgment, and refined taste. He was, in all respects, so superior to any one with whom Ellen had ever yet been thrown, that he appeared to her a being of another order. The enthusiasm which we have described as being a leading feature of his character, although tempered by judgment in political matters, was still all there; and the impression produced by the first sight of Ellen in her weeds, was not weakened by further acquaintance. The lightning of her smile, when usurping the place of her usually pensive expression, reminded him of the days of youthful romance, when he and his friend Melandrini used to study Petrarch together, and reading of the “lampeggiar del angelico riso,” would picture to themselves what must have been that Laura, who could render the poet, Si da se stesso diviso E fatto singolar da l’altra gente. He now thought, if she had resembled Ellen, there was nothing to marvel at in the poets’s long and hopeless devotion.