man's work and man's skill going to ruin for want of man's care—and nothing is more desolate than the moss and the green weed choking the fountain, and half hiding the fallen column.
The silver waters of the spring had long since disappeared, but there still were left a few of the Corinthian pillars, some stretched on the ground and overgrown with creeping-plants, while two or three yet remained erect, and showed how graceful the whole must have been. There was a fragment, too, of broken wall, on which were seated Francesca and the young cavalier, one whose long fair hair and clear blue eye spoke of a more northern clime than her own.
"Let my father once see you," urged the youth, "and I am sure of his consent; we will then return hither, where you will be the dearer for your brief absence; your grandfather will renounce his strange antipathy to my country in witnessing your happiness—and—for the stars shine as brightly on Evelyn Abbey as they do on yonder old tower—who knows but the philosopher's stone may be discovered in England?"
Francesca let him speak on; she was happy at least while she listened; but silence was no answer, for here, at least, it gave no consent.
