Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love."
--GUIDO GUNICELLI (_Rossetti's Translation_).

There was another house besides the white house at Pennicote, another
breast besides Rex Gascoigne's, in which the news of Grandcourt's death
caused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it.

It was Hans Meyrick's habit to send or bring in the _Times_ for his
mother's reading. She was a great reader of news, from the
widest-reaching politics to the list of marriages; the latter, she
said, giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels
without having read them, and seeing the heroes and heroines happy
without knowing what poor creatures they were. On a Wednesday, there
were reasons why Hans always chose to bring the paper, and to do so
about the time that Mirah had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly
lesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Mirah sing.
But on the particular Wednesday now in question, after entering the
house as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the
parlor, shaking the _Times_ aloft with a crackling noise, in
remorseless interruption of Mab's attempt to render _Lascia ch'io
pianga_ with a remote imitation of her teacher. Piano and song ceased
immediately; Mirah, who had been playing the accompaniment,
involuntarily started up and turned round, the crackling sound, after
the occasional trick of sounds, having seemed to her something
thunderous; and Mab said--

"O-o-o, Hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?"

"What on earth is the wonderful news?" said Mrs. Meyrick, who was the
only other person in the room. "Anything about Italy--anything about
the Austrians giving up Venice?"

"Nothing about Italy, but something from Italy," said Hans, with a
peculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting.
Imagine how some of us feel and behave when an event, not disagreeable
seems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions. We
say, "What do you think?" in a pregnant tone to some innocent person
who has not embarked his wisdom in the same boat with ours, and finds
our information flat.

"Nothing bad?" said Mrs. Meyrick anxiously, thinking immediately of
Deronda; and Mirah's heart had been already clutched by the same
thought.

"Not bad for anybody we care much about," said Hans, quickly; "rather
uncommonly lucky, I think. I never knew anybody die conveniently
before. Considering