u find to love in your
severe and repelling uncle?"

"Not severe, not repelling, to me. I once thought him so; but it was
only to feel the more the kindness which changed his very nature
towards us. My uncle resembles the impression produced on me by his
palace: when I first entered, the stillness, the time-worn hangings,
the huge, dark rooms, chilled my very heart. We went from these old
gloomy apartments to those destined for us, so light, so cheerful,
where every care had been bestowed, every luxury lavished; and I said
within myself, 'My uncle must love us, or he would never be thus
anxious for our pleasure.'"

A few moments more and their brief conference was over. But they
parted to meet again; and at length Giulietta fled to be the bride of
Lorenzo da Carrara. But she fled with a sad heart and tearful eyes;
and when, after her marriage, every prayer for pardon was rejected by
the cardinal, Giulietta wept as if such sorrow had not been foreseen.
Her uncle felt her flight most bitterly. He had watched his favourite
niece, if not with tenderness of look and tone, yet with deep
tenderness of heart. When her elder sisters married and left his roof,
he missed them not: but now it was a sweet music that had suddenly
ceased, a soft light that had vanished. The only flower that, during
his severe existence, he had permitted himself to cherish, had passed
away even from the hand that sheltered it. It was an illusion fresh
from his youth: his love for the mother had revived in a gentler and
holier form for her child, and now that, too, must perish. He felt as
if punished for a weakness; and all Giulietta's supplications were
rejected: for pride made his anger seem principle. "I have been once
deceived," said he; "it will be my own fault if I am deceived again."

Yet how tenderly was his kindness remembered, how bitterly was his
indignation deplored, by the youthful Countess da Carrara!--for such
she now was--Lorenzo's father having died suddenly, soon after their
union. The period of mourning was a relief; for bridal pomp and gaiety
would have seemed too like a mockery, while thus unforgiven and
unblessed by one who had been as a father in his care. At her earnest
wish they fixed their first residence in the marine villa where her
mother died.

"And shall you not be sad, my Giulietta?" asked her husband. "Methinks
the memory of the dead is but a mournful welcome to our home."

"Tender, not mournful," said she. "I do b