the good priest, whom he left behind.

Two years after his departure, Father Marco obtained for Flora a
situation about the person of the Lady Nisida; for the monk was
confessor to the family of Riverola, and his influence was sufficient to
secure that place for the young maiden.

We have already said that Flora was sweetly beautiful. Her large blue
eyes were fringed with dark lashes, which gave them an expression of the
most melting softness; her dark brown hair, arranged in the modest
bands, seemed of even a darker hue when contrasted with the brilliant
and transparent clearness of her complexion, and though her forehead was
white and polished as alabaster, yet the rose-tint of health was upon
her cheeks, and her lips had the rich redness of coral. Her nose was
perfectly straight; her teeth were white and even, and the graceful
arching of her swan-neck imparted something of nobility to her tall,
sylph-like, and exquisitely proportioned figure.

Retiring and bashful in her manners, every look which fell from her
eyes--every smile which wreathed her lips, denoted the chaste purity of
her soul. With all her readiness to oblige--with all her anxiety to do
her duty as she ought, she frequently incurred the anger of the
irascible Nisida; but Flora supported those manifestations of wrath with
the sweetest resignation, because the excellence of her disposition
taught her to make every allowance for one so deeply afflicted as her
mistress.

Such was the young maiden whom the nature of the present tale compels us
thus particularly to introduce to our readers.

Having carefully arranged the boudoir, so that its strict neatness might
be welcome to her mistress when that lady chose to rise from her couch,
Flora seated herself near the table, and gave way to her reflections.

She thought of her aunt, who inhabited a neat little cottage on the
banks of the Arno, and whom she was usually permitted to visit every
Sabbath afternoon--she thought of her absent brother, who was still in
the service of the Florentine Envoy to the Ottomon Porte, where that
diplomatist was detained by the tardiness that marked the negotiations
with which he was charged; and then she thought--thought too, with an
involuntary sigh--of Francisco, Count of Riverola.

She perceived that she had sighed--and, without knowing precisely
wherefore, she was angry with herself.

Anxious to turn the channel of her meditations in another direction, she
rose from