Reginald, if you ever loved me, write and say that I am forgiven—tell me that I have not ruined your happiness. Do not speak of my poor attractions. Would that I were plain, since my beauty has caused our separation. You say you are not my “_beau ideal_.” If it be true, that my foolish romantic fancy has portrayed an impossible hero—at least, your rare devotion to one worthless as myself is the very “_beau ideal_” of all that mortals term love. For this, accept my undying gratitude. One last request—for your Evelyn’s sake, be prudent. Do not expose yourself to danger unnecessarily; and she will nightly kneel before the throne of grace, and pray that her numerous faults and follies may rather he visited on her own head, and that every blessing, temporal and eternal, may fall to the lot of him who, though absent, is forever present with his repentant EVELYN. P. S.—Remember, I shall count the days, the hours, the moments, until I hear from you. Do not keep me in suspense. Mary desires kindest regards, and little Ella her best love. After the preceding letter was dispatched to Colonel Melville’s agents for transmission to India, I endeavored as much as possible to divert Evelyn’s mind from dwelling on painful subjects. The state of her health was far from satisfactory. I therefore used all my influence to persuade her to enter a little into society, as we calculated no reply could possibly come under three months from the seat of war, and till that time had elapsed anxiety would be but needless self-torment. We were acquainted with an English family, whose pretty schooner—the “Turquoise”—was lying in the bay of Sorrento. Captain and Mrs. Blake had frequently invited us to make excursions with them to the various objects of interest which abound on the classic shores of the ancient Parthenope. We had hitherto refused—myself because I detested the sea; Evelyn, because she was utterly out of spirits. One evening, however, our kind friends came and would take no denial. They were accompanied by a young Sicilian nobleman, a great friend of Ella’s, for he never called without a box of bonbons, a basket of fruit, or a bouquet for the young lady, whom he had named _Sorcietto_, or “little Mousey.” The Duc di Balzano was a fine-looking man of from twenty-eight to thirty years of age. Dark as the very darkest of his race, he possessed an open countenance, and an expression beaming with goodness. Unlike the generality of his rather effeminate countrymen, Balzano was cast in the mould of a Hercules, and even in England, (that land of splendidly formed men), he would have been remarked for the perfection of his figure and the grace of his movements. I remember later seeing him execute the Tarantella, or national dance of Naples, in a manner that might have shamed many a Terpsichorean star of the opera.