et it be so! Addio. I reserve all sweet names for you. Addio. In
Pallanza:--no not Pallanza--Paradise!

"Hush! and do not smile at me:--it was not my will, I discover, but my
want of will, that distracted me.

"See my last signature of--not Vittoria; for I may sign that again and
still be Emilia Alessandra Ammiani.

"SANDRA BELLONI"

The letter was sealed; Luigi bore it away, and a brief letter to Countess
Ammiani, in Pallanza, as well.

Vittoria was relieved of her anxiety concerning Merthyr by the arrival of
Georgiana, who had been compelled to make her way round by Piacenza and
Turin, where she had left Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him.
Georgiana at once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the more
resolutely because of her brother's evident moral weakness in sighing for
the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. "When he is stronger you
can sit beside him a little," she said to Vittoria, who surrendered her
post without a struggle, and rarely saw him, though Laura told her that
his frequent exclamation was her name, accompanied by a soft look at his
sister--"which would have stirred my heart like poor old Milan last
March," Laura added, with a lift of her shoulders.

Georgiana's icy manner appeared infinitely strange to Vittoria when she
heard from Merthyr that his sister had become engaged to Captain Gambier.

"Nothing softens these women," said Laura, putting Georgiana in a class.

"I wish you could try the effect of your winning Merthyr," Vittoria
suggested.

"I remember that when I went to my husband, I likewise wanted every woman
of my acquaintance to be married." Laura sighed deeply. "What is this
poor withered body of mine now? It feels like an old volcano, cindery,
with fire somewhere:--a charming bride! My dear, if I live till my
children make me a grandmother, I shall look on the love of men and women
as a toy that I have played with. A new husband? I must be dragged
through the Circles of Dante before I can conceive it, and then I should
loathe the stranger."

News came that the volunteers were crushed. It was time for Vittoria to
start for Pallanza, and she thought of her leave-taking; a final
leave-taking, in one sense, to the friends who had cared too much for
her. Laura delicately drew Georgiana aside in the sick-room, which she
would not quit, and alluded to the necessity for Vittoria's departure
without stating exactly wherefore: but Georgiana was a