d Riccabocca, listlessly. "Are these suns more
serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith
the proverb, 'he who sows land, reaps more care than corn.' It were
different," continued the father after a pause, and in a more irresolute
tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on--nay, if
among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one female who
would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth--Ishmael had his Hagar.
But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the nameless, wants
and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so delicately
reared--the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender eye of a
woman."

"And with a word," said Jackeymo, resolutely, "the Padrone might secure
to his child all that he needs, to save her from the sepulchre of a
convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his
knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that
you love your child better than all things in the world--now the Patria
is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers--and your heart-strings
would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and consign her to a
convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice--never again to see her
face! Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark night,
when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, as you felt their
clasp, 'Friend, all is not yet lost!'"

"Giacomo!" exclaimed the father, reproachfully, and his voice seemed to
choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and fro the
terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture as he still
continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, heaven is my
witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a murmur,
had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and privation. Heaven
is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because I would not listen
to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see her again--my child!
And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O friend, friend----"
(and, stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable emotion, he bowed
his head upon his servant's shoulder;) "thou knowest what I have endured
and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the wrong, the perfidy,
the--the--" His voice again failed him; he clung to his servant's
breast, and his whole frame shook.

"But your child, the innocent one--I think now only of her!" faltered
Gia