"O my noble-hearted boy!" cried Bianca, pressing my head against her breast with deep emotion; "O pure and unselfish soul! Who will dare now to say that there are no great hearts save those that are born in palaces! Who will dare deny the honor and saintliness of these plebeian natures, ranked so low by our hateful prejudices and our absurd disdain! You are the only man who ever loved me for myself alone, the only man whose aim was not my rank or my fortune!--Very well! you shall share them both, you shall make me forget the miseries of my first marriage, and replace with your rustic name the hateful name of Aldini, which I bear with regret! You shall command my vassals and be at once the lord of my estates and the master of my life. Nello, will you marry me?" If the earth had opened under my feet, or if the skies had fallen on my head, I could not have experienced a more violent shock of amazement than that which struck me dumb in the face of such a question. When I had recovered somewhat from my stupefaction, I do not know what reply I made, for my head was going round, and it was impossible for me to think coherently. All that my natural good sense could do was to put aside honors too heavy for my age and my inexperience. Bianca insisted. "Listen," she said; "I am not happy. My cheerfulness has long been a cloak for intense suffering, until now, as you see, I am ill and can no longer conceal my ennui. My position in society is false and very distasteful to me; my position in my own esteem is worse still, and God is dissatisfied with me. You know that I am not of patrician descent. Torquato Aldini married me on account of the great fortune my father had amassed in business. That haughty nobleman never saw in me anything more than the instrument of his fortune, he never deigned to treat me as his equal; some of his relatives encouraged him in maintaining the absurd and cruel attitude of lord and master which he assumed toward me at the outset; others blamed him severely for having contracted a misalliance in order to pay his debts, and treated him coldly after his marriage. After his death they all refused to see me, and I found myself without any family; for by entering the family of a noble I had forfeited the esteem and affection of my own people. I had married Torquato for love, and those of my relatives who did not consider me insane believed me to be guided by foolish vanity and vile ambition. That is why, despite my wealth and my youth and an obliging and inoffensive disposition, you see my salons almost empty and my social circle so restricted. I have some warm friends, and their company satisfies my heart. But I am entirely unfamiliar with the intoxication of society at large, and it has not treated me so well that I am called upon to sacrifice my happiness to it. I know that by marrying you I shall draw down upon myself not its indifference simply but its irrevocable malediction. Do not be alarmed;