the silvery line of Tasso, rise before
us, softening force and valour into love and song,--haunted the reveries
of the fair Italian maid.

Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, was no better
and no loftier than the Present: it is not thus seen by pure and
generous eyes. Let the Past perish, when it ceases to reflect on its
magic mirror the beautiful Romance which is its noblest reality, though
perchance but the shadow of Delusion.

Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life was so
puissant and rich, that action seemed necessary to its glorious
development,--action, but still in the woman's sphere,--action to bless
and to refine and to exalt all around her, and to pour whatever else of
ambition was left unsatisfied into sympathy with the aspirations of man.
Despite her father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she
had strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic
step, her eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and
luxuriant,--all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such
exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could
ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the
North. Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante
was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she
was so ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted
with shame. From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a
delightful flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly
the accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be
cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the
talk so vapid, she had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste,
and commands the love, of the man of talent; especially if his talent be
not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where
he seeks companionship,--the accomplishment of facility in intellectual
interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly
ideas.

"I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, as she still
watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for
his country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and
wished that he were here."

As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her hands drooped on
her knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's,