"He was much younger than Uncle Rolf; he was still at college when Uncle Rolf went out to India with his wife. He distinguished himself there, and made a great many friends; his brilliant abilities attracted the notice of rather an influential man; he offered him a secretaryship, and soon afterward took him with him to Rome. "There his success was even greater than it had been in London. Every one conspired to spoil and flatter the handsome young Englishman. He was admitted to the most select circles; the youthful queens of society tried to find favor in his eyes; he might have made more than one splendid match, for there was quite a _furor_ about him, but he soon put a stop to his brilliant career by a most imprudent marriage, for he fell in love with a Roman flower-girl and made her his wife. "Ah, you look shocked, Fern; society was shocked too, they had made so much of him, you see. "People said he was mad, that Bianca's dark eyes had bewitched him; it may be so, but from the day when he first saw her tying up her roses and lilies on the steps of the fountain, to the last moment when he laid his head like a tired child on her bosom to die, he never loved any other woman but her, and he loved her well. But it was not a happy match; how could it be? it was too unequal, he had all the gentleness and calm that belonged to the Ferrers, and she--she brought him, beside her dark Madonna beauty, the fierce Italian nature, the ungovernable temper that became the heritage of her unhappy daughter." Fern started as though she would have spoken, but Crystal only pressed her hand and went on-- "When a few months had passed over, and the fame of Bianca's great beauty had got abroad, society relaxed its frowns a little, and received its erring favorite into its arms again. "They had left Rome and had settled at Florence, and friends began to flock round them; Bianca was only a peasant girl, but love taught her refinement, and she did not disgrace her husband's choice; but it would have been more for her happiness, and my father's too, if they had never withdrawn from the seclusion of their quiet villa. "For very soon the fierce jealousy of her undisciplined nature began to assert itself. "She could not endure to see her husband talk to another woman, or hear him praise one even in the most moderate terms. A mere trifle would provoke her, and then long and painful were the scenes that ensued. "She loved him passionately; she loved him as only an Italian can love; and she made his life so bitter to him that he yielded it up almost thankfully at last. He had been very patient with her, and when he was dying, he put his hands upon her dark hair in his tender way: