is eyes: but in the next moment their expression
changed to one denoting the fiercest rage.

Nisida understood all that was passing in his soul; and she bent upon
him a significant glance, which said more eloquently than language could
have done--"Yes, vengeance thou shalt have!"

She then rose from the velvet cushions which had been spread upon the
ground within the tent, and waving her hand in token of temporary
farewell to Demetrius, hastened forth, mounted her horse, and departed,
alone and unattended, toward Florence.

Great was the surprise that evening of the numerous servants and
dependents at the Riverola mansion, when Donna Nisida suddenly
reappeared after an absence of very nearly seven months--and that
absence so unaccountable to them! Although her haughty and imperious
manner had never been particularly calculated to render her beloved by
the menials of the household, yet her supposed affliction of deafness
and dumbness had naturally made her an object of interest; and,
moreover, as close upon three months had elapsed since Count Francisco
himself had disappeared in a strange and alarming way two days only
after his return from the wars, the domestics were pleased to behold at
least one member of the lost family come back amongst them. Thus it was
with sincere demonstrations of delight that the dependents and menials
welcomed Donna Nisida at Riverola; and she was not ungracious enough to
receive their civilities with coldness. But she speedily escaped from
the ceremonies of this reception: and, intimating by signs to the female
minions who were about to escort her to her apartments that she was
anxious to be alone, she hurried thither, her heart leaping with joy at
the thought of being once more beneath the roof of the palace of her
forefathers. And, Fernand--wast thou forgotten? Oh! no--no; in spite of
all her revived schemings and new plots, Nisida, thy well-beloved
Nisida, had room in her heart for thine image! On reaching her own suit
of apartments, the key of which had been handed to her by one of the
female dependents, Nisida found everything in the same state as when she
last was there; and it appeared to her a dream, yes, a very wondrous
dream, that she had been absent for nearly seven months, and during that
period had seen and experienced such strange vicissitudes. The reader
need scarcely be informed that Nisida's first impulse, on entering her
own suit of apartments in the Riverola mansion, wa