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CHAPTER XIX.
"Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed;
A crown for the brow of the early dead."
The next morning Francesca was seated at one of the windows with her father, occasionally talking in the hope of amusing him, but often allowing her attention to be drawn to the scene before her. It was the atmosphere and heaven of summer redeeming the winter spread over the earth—just one of those glad and genial days with which November sometimes delights to mock itself. The sky was of that deep rich blue which is brought out so vividly by the few scattered white clouds, whose vapours are soft as if dew, not rain, were gathered in those snowy masses. Beneath, the grass of the park was of the brightest emerald, while the sunbeams chased on another over the undulating herbage, as if rejoicing in their prolonged dominion, and unwilling to waste one
