ld her in suspense on the
propriety of braving the prejudices of the world. The timidity of that sex
which, however ready to make an offering of its most cherished privileges
on the shrine of connubial tenderness, shrinks with a keen sensitiveness
from the appearance of a forward devotion to the other, had its weight
also, nor could a child so pious altogether forget the effect her decision
might have on the future happiness of her sole surviving parent.

The Genoese understood the struggle, though he foresaw its termination,
and he resumed the discourse himself, partly with the kind wish to give
the maiden time to reflect maturely before she answered, and partly
following a very natural train of his own thoughts.

"There is naught sure in this fickle state of being;" he continued.
"Neither the throne, nor riches, nor health, nor even the sacred
affections are secure against change. Well may we pause then and weigh
every chance of happiness, ere we take the last and final step in any
great or novel measure. Thou knowest the hopes with which I entered life,
Melchior, and the chilling disappointments with which my career is likely
to close. No youth was born to fairer hopes, nor did Italy know one more
joyous than myself, the morning I received the hand of Angiolina; and yet
two short years saw all those hopes withered, this joyousness gone, and a
cloud thrown across my prospects which has never disappeared. A widowed
husband, a childless father, may not prove a bad counsellor, my friend, in
a moment when there is so much doubt besetting thee and thine."

"Thy mind naturally returns to thine own unhappy child, poor Gaetano, when
there is so much question of the fortunes of mine."

The Signor Grimaldi turned his look on his friend, but the gleam of
anguish, which was wont to pass athwart his countenance when his mind was
drawn powerfully towards that painful subject, betrayed that he was not
just then able to reply.

"We see in all these events," continued the Genoese, as if too full of his
subject to restrain his words, "the unsearchable designs of Providence.
Here is a youth who is all that a father could desire; worthy in every
sense to be the depository of a beloved and only daughter's weal; manly,
brave, virtuous, and noble in all but the chances of blood, and yet so
accursed by the world's opinion that we might scarce venture to name him
as the associate of an idle hour, were the fact known that he is the man
he