not proceed at once to the house, but stood
beside the fountain, trying hard to keep back his tears.

"You, Leonard--and you are going!" said a soft voice; and the tears fell
faster than ever, for he recognized the voice of Violante.

"Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender gravity. "You
are going, but Papa says it would be selfish in us to grieve, for it is
for your good; and we should be glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I
do grieve. I shall miss you sadly."

"You, young lady,--you miss me?"

"Yes; but I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and I wish I were a
boy: I wish I could do as you."

The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, with a kind of
passionate dignity.

"Do as me, and part from all those you love!"

"But to serve those you love. One day you will come back to your
mother's cottage, and say, 'I have conquered fortune.' Oh that I could
go forth and return, as you will! But my father has no country, and his
only child is a useless girl."

As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears: her emotion distracted
him from his own.

"Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, "what it is to
be a man! A woman sighs, 'I wish,' but a man should say, 'I will.'"

Occasionally before Leonard had noted fitful flashes of a nature grand
and heroic in the Italian child, especially of late,--flashes the more
remarkable from the contrast to a form most exquisitely feminine, and
to a sweetness of temper which made even her pride gentle. But now it
seemed as if the child spoke with the command of a queen,--almost with
the inspiration of a Muse. A strange and new sense of courage entered
within him.

"May I remember these words!" he murmured, half audibly.

The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture.
She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and as he bent
over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said, "And
if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a
brave heart in the great strife for honour!"

She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, gliding away,
was lost amongst the trees.

After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly from the surprise
and agitation into which Violante had thrown his spirits--previously
excited as they were--he went, murmuring to himself, towards the
house. But Riccabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to
the terrace