y
dear prudential mother say, to see me leaving my business to
agents and clerks, while I devote my life to the service of an
opera-singer?--an opera-singer, too, who has twice been on the verge
of being sold as a slave, and who has been the victim of a sham
marriage!" But though such queries jostled against conventional ideas
received from education, they were always followed by the thought: "My
dear mother has gone to a sphere of wider vision, whence she can look
down upon the merely external distinctions of this deceptive world.
Rosabella must be seen as a pure, good soul, in eyes that see as the
angels do; and as the defenceless daughter of my father's friend,
it is my duty to protect her." So he removed from his more eligible
lodgings in the Piazza di Spagna, and took rooms in the Corso,
nearly opposite to hers, where day by day he continued his invisible
guardianship.

He had reason, at various times, to think his precautions were not
entirely unnecessary. He had several times seen a figure resembling
Fitzgerald's lurking about the opera-house, wrapped in a cloak, and
with a cap very much drawn over his face. Once Madame and the Signor,
having descended from the carriage, with Rosa, to examine the tomb of
Cecilia Metella, were made a little uneasy by the appearance of four
rude-looking fellows, who seemed bent upon lurking in their vicinity.
But they soon recognized Mr. King in the distance, and not far from
him the disguised policemen in his employ. The fears entertained by
her friends were never mentioned to Rosa, and she appeared to feel no
uneasiness when riding in daylight with the driver and her adopted
parents. She was sometimes a little afraid when leaving the opera late
at night; but there was a pleasant feeling of protection in the idea
that a friend of her father's was in Rome, who knew better than the
Signor how to keep out of quarrels. That recollection also operated
as an additional stimulus to excellence in her art. This friend had
expressed himself very highly gratified by her successful _debut_,
and that consideration considerably increased her anxiety to sustain
herself at the height she had attained. In some respects that was
impossible; for the thrilling circumstances of the first evening could
not again recur to set her soul on fire. Critics generally said she
never equalled her first acting; though some maintained that what she
had lost in power she had gained in a more accurate conception o