a French baron.
Unfortunately, however, she had to go away to be married; and Richard
who loved her to desperation, wept bitterly, partly because he was to
lose her and partly because she didn't weep too. Edward and the young
lady's sister, who also understood each other, fared no better, for
Colonel Burton having got tired of Pau, the whole family had to return
to Italy. At Pisa "S'or Riccardo" and "S'or Edwardo" again "cocked their
hats and loved the ladies," Riccardo's choice being a slim, soft,
dark beauty named Caterina, Edwardo's her sister Antonia. Proposals
of marriage were made and accepted, but adieux had soon to follow, for
Colonel Burton now moved to Lucca. All four lovers gave way to tears,
and Richard was so wrung with grief that he did not become engaged
again for over a fortnight. At Lucca the precious pair ruffled it with
a number of dissolute medical students, who taught them several quite
original wickednesses. They went, however, with their parents, into more
wholesome society; and were introduced to Louis Desanges, the battle
painter, Miss Helen Croly, daughter of the author of Salathiel, and
Miss Virginia Gabriel (daughter of General, generally called Archangel
Gabriel) the lady who afterwards attained fame as a musical composer
[43] and became, as we have recently discovered, one of the friends of
Walter Pater. Says Burton "she showed her savoir faire at the earliest
age. At a ball given to the Prince, all appeared in their finest
dresses, and richest jewellery. Miss Virginia was in white, with a
single necklace of pink coral." They danced till daybreak, when Miss
Virginia "was like a rose among faded dahlias and sunflowers."

Here, as everywhere, there was more pistol practice, and the boys plumed
themselves on having discovered a new vice--that of opium-eating,
while their father made the house unendurable by the preparation
of sulphuretted hydrogen and other highly-scented compounds. It was
recognised, however, that these chemical experiments had at least
the advantage of keeping Colonel Burton employed, and consequently of
allowing everybody a little breathing time at each stopping-place. In
the spring of 1840, Colonel Burton, Mr. Du Pre and the lads set out for
Schinznach, in Switzerland, to drink the waters; and then the family
returned to England in order that Richard and Edward might have a
university education. Their father, although not quite certain as to
their future, thought they wer