light as she entered.
Hers was that cherub look, those large, soft eyes, full dimpled cheeks,
and mouth of infantine sweetness, that expresses the rare union of
happiness and love. Admiration first possessed me; she is mine! was the
second proud emotion, and my lips curled with haughty triumph. I had not
been the _enfant gate_ of the beauties of France not to have learnt the
art of pleasing the soft heart of woman. If towards men I was
overbearing, the deference I paid to them was the more in contrast. I
commenced my courtship by the display of a thousand gallantries to
Juliet, who, vowed to me from infancy, had never admitted the devotion
of others; and who, though accustomed to expressions of admiration, was
uninitiated in the language of lovers.

For a few days all went well. Torella never alluded to my extravagance;
he treated me as a favorite son. But the time came, as we discussed the
preliminaries to my union with his daughter, when this fair face of
things should be overcast. A contract had been drawn up in my father's
lifetime. I had rendered this, in fact, void, by having squandered the
whole of the wealth which was to have been shared by Juliet and myself.
Torella, in consequence, chose to consider this bond as cancelled, and
proposed another, in which, though the wealth he bestowed was
immeasurably increased, there were so many restrictions as to the mode
of spending it, that I, who saw independence only in free career being
given to my own imperious will, taunted him as taking advantage of my
situation, and refused utterly to subscribe to his conditions. The old
man mildly strove to recall me to reason. Roused pride became the tyrant
of my thought: I listened with indignation--I repelled him with disdain.

"Juliet, thou art mine! Did we not interchange vows in our innocent
childhood? are we not one in the sight of God? and shall thy
cold-hearted, cold-blooded father divide us? Be generous, my love, be
just; take not away a gift, last treasure of thy Guido--retract not thy
vows--let us defy the world, and setting at naught the calculations of
age, find in our mutual affection a refuge from every ill!"

Fiend I must have been, with such sophistry to endeavor to poison that
sanctuary of holy thought and tender love. Juliet shrank from me
affrighted. Her father was the best and kindest of men, and she strove
to show me how, in obeying him, every good would follow. He would
receive my tardy submission with war