fervently with grief? Have not the six years of his
absence been a dream, and was not his return a waking into light--a
morning of glory and the sun? and I see him now in the church when he
wots not of me; and on his happy steed as he passes by my lattice: and
is not that enough of happiness for love?"

"But if he loves not thee?"

"Fool! I ask not that;--nay, I know not if I wish it. Perhaps I would
rather dream of him, such as I would have him, than know him for what
he is. He might be unkind, or ungenerous, or love me but little; rather
would I not be loved at all, than loved coldly, and eat away my heart by
comparing it with his. I can love him now as something abstract, unreal,
and divine: but what would be my shame, my grief, if I were to find him
less than I have imagined! Then, indeed, my life would have been wasted;
then, indeed, the beauty of the earth would be gone!"

The good nurse was not very capable of sympathizing with sentiments like
these. Even had their characters been more alike, their disparity of age
would have rendered such sympathy impossible. What but youth can echo
back the soul of youth--all the music of its wild vanities and romantic
follies? The good nurse did not sympathize with the sentiments of her
young lady, but she sympathised with the deep earnestness with which
they were expressed. She thought it wondrous silly, but wondrous moving;
she wiped her eyes with the corner of her veil, and hoped in her secret
heart that her young charge would soon get a real husband to put such
unsubstantial fantasies out of her head. There was a short pause in
their conversation, when, just where two streets crossed one another,
there was heard a loud noise of laughing voices and trampling feet.
Torches were seen on high affronting the pale light of the moon; and,
at a very short distance from the two females, in the cross street,
advanced a company of seven or eight men, bearing, as seen by the red
light of the torches, the formidable badge of the Orsini.

Amidst the other disorders of the time, it was no unfrequent custom
for the younger or more dissolute of the nobles, in small and armed
companies, to parade the streets at night, seeking occasion for a
licentious gallantry among the cowering citizens, or a skirmish at arms
with some rival stragglers of their own order. Such a band had Irene and
her companion now chanced to encounter.

"Holy mother!" cried Benedetta, turning pale, and half running,