Evelyn, as a sacred charge, he invoked on the beloved heads of both a farewell blessing. Such was D’Arcy’s first letter. Single hearted, true and noble, he framed no polite excuses for apparent neglect in not having called to bid them a personal adieu. He knew they would understand him, and he was right. It now appeared to me that there was a marked change in Evelyn. All her passionate love for D’Arcy seemed to have merged into a fond desire to educate Ella for him. She accepted the holy task he had confided to her, and made a firm resolve to devote her faculties wholly to the furtherance of his wishes. Thus, no longer living as before utterly in the self-hood, but rather seeking the good of others, she could not fail to bring a blessing on herself. We passed the remainder of the summer at Passy, near Paris, where Rossini has a beautiful villa, and where, others of our friends were also residing. Expecting shortly the arrival of Balzano, we had thought it inexpedient to journey further. But weeks were added to days, and months to weeks, and yet no letter came. “He will doubtless come without writing,” we said, and so saying, daily looked we for his advent. Our frequent talk now was of beloved Italy, and of the happy days we had passed beneath the placid azure of its heavens. “Ah! me,” sighed my friend, “how rarely do we value the present till it has faded into the past! We spend our lives in wild hopes of the future—in sad regrets for by-gone days. Folly—to the present with its pleasures and pains may we alone lay claim as our own. Do you remember, Mary, the fairy-like _fête_ given by the Conte de Syracuse, in that exquisitely lovely mountain glade at Castellamare, so shadowy with graceful trees, through whose branches here and there, a bright glint of sunshine gilded the rocks, dancing over the feathery fern, and causing the rivulet to sparkle with a clearer crystal? how sapphire blue lay the Mediterranean, viewed through the interstices of the varied foliage. It was truly a scene of enchantment, and reminded me of those days chronicled by Boccaccio when six gallant cavaliers with their noble dames retired together to the fair gardens of _Sans Souci_ that they might avoid the infection of the pestilence then desolating the doomed city of Florence.” “Yes,” said I, “and how picturesque the table prepared as it were, by the genii of the forest; how brilliant the dresses of the ladies, and though last, not least, how cool and refreshing the well iced champagne! And, after the collation, how charmingly wild our dance on the greensward to the stirring music of the invisible orchestra deeply hidden in the woods.”