country, she called up their future life vividly before her. They would live in Italy, and those summer skies, whose stars they had so often, with all the poetry of early passion, called to witness the gentle vows which love so delights to make—those very skies would brighten around their home, where affection would more than realise its promise and its dream.
Francesca could feel no regret at leaving England. How much sorrow, how much anxiety, had she known upon its soil! Never had her southern frame become accustomed to its chilling vapours and its driving winds. How often had she turned to the glorious elements, the green and fragrant earth, the sunny atmosphere, of her delicious land! "I leave nothing," thought she, "but Guido's grave." Lord Avonleigh she felt had no claim. With what selfish indifference would he have sacrificed her in the first instance! His late acknowledgment had been wrung from him in a moment of hasty fear, when a heavy and terrible misfortune had startled him with a superstitious dread of a sudden judgment, which is the religion of a weak mind. Since then, with what coldness, what unkindness, had she been treated!—the one selected victim of his petulance, because so dependent upon it. And now, with what hard
