ged to you,' replied Edoardo, half vexed. 'What
do you mean? If you do not explain your words I shall be very angry.'

'The explanation--the explanation, Edoardo, is here in my head, but
not in my heart. The explanation, Edoardo, is that I love you too
much, and I am not pleased with myself. Yes, but there are sorrows,
Edoardo, which sadly wear away our life; but these sorrows are a
need, a duty, and to forget them is a crime. My poor sister, the only
friend I have ever had, that poor saint, the victim of love, dead
through the treachery of a man hardly two years since: on memory of
her I have lived for eighteen months; but I even forget her when I
see you, when I speak to you. Perhaps I do not bestow on my mother as
much attention as her unhappy state requires. Alas! there is no
reproach more bitter than this: "You are a bad daughter!" And this my
conscience reproaches me with being a thousand times. Thus, Edoardo,
I am wanting in my duties. I am a weak creature: a powerful, and too
sweet sentiment threatens to take entire possession of me, to the
detriment of the other sentiments that nature has implanted in our
heart. Go, then, Edoardo; I have need of calm--I have need of not
seeing you. Suffer me to fulfil my duties, that I may be more worthy
of you. When you are far away, I shall have full faith in you. But if
your father should refuse his consent to our union?'

'Leave those sad thoughts. My father wishes only to please me, and it
will be sufficient for me to ask his consent to obtain it. Even
should he refuse it, in two years the law will permit me to dispose
of myself as I choose.'

'May Heaven remove this sad presentiment from my mind; but it makes
me tremble. Oh! if you return with the desired consent of your
father! oh! if my mother, as the physicians gave me reason to hope,
should then be well! we shall be the happiest of mortals.'

The sound of a silver bell, heard from a chamber close by, took away
Sophia from her occupation. She rose hastily, saving, 'My mother! oh,
my poor mother! Adieu for a while, Edoardo.'

Edoardo Valperghi was the son of a wealthy Venetian merchant. He had
received a grave but unprofitable education, it being that which is
wholly directed to the intellect and nothing to the heart. He was
studying in one of those colleges in which the system of education is
as old as the walls of the edifice. He had been told that he had a
heart, but no one had spoken of how it was to be directe