ing effaced her image; had ambition
obliterated it? No; she was ever in his thoughts--the most beautiful and
most gifted creature he had ever seen. If he read, it was always with
the thought, what would she have said of it? If he sank into a reverie,
she was the centre round which his dreams revolved. Her large, mild
eyes, her glowing cheek, her full lips, tremulous with feeling, were
ever before him; and what would he not have given to be her companion
again, wandering the world; blending all that was fascinating in poetic
description with scenes wayward enough to have been conjured up by
fancy! Why had they deserted him? he asked himself over and over. Had
the passing dispute with Marietta determined her to meet him no more?
And if so, what influence could she have exercised over the others to
induce them to take this step? There was but one of whom he could hope
to gain this knowledge--Alfieri himself, whose generosity had succoured
them, and in the few and brief moments of the poet's visit to the villa
he had not courage to venture on the question.

The Marquise came frequently to see him, and seemed pleased to talk
with him, and lighten the hours of his solitude by engaging him in
conversation. Dare he ask her? Could he presume to inquire, from one
so high-born and so great what had befallen his humble comrades of the
road? How entreat her to trace their steps, or to learn their plans? Had
she, indeed, seen Marietta, there would have been no difficulty in the
inquiry. Who could have beheld her without feeling an interest in her
fate? Brief, however, as had been his intercourse with great people, he
had already marked the tone of indolent condescension with which they
treated the lives of the very poor. The pity they gave them cost no
emotion: if they sorrowed, it was with a grief that had no pang. Their
very generosity had more reference to their own sensations than to the
feelings of those they befriended. Already, young as he was, did he
catch a glimpse of that deep gulf that divides affluence from misery,
and in the bitterness of his grief for her who had left him, he
exaggerated the callousness of the rich and the sufferings of the poor.

Every comfort was supplied to him, all that care could bestow, or
kindness remember, was around him; and yet, why was it his gratitude
flowed not in a pure, unsullied stream, but came with uncertain gushes,
fitfully, unequally; now sluggish, now turbid; clogged with many a fou