ssed delightful evenings alone with their
daughter, listening while she sang and played. To them there was a vast
secret pleasure in the presence, in the slightest word of that child;
their eyes followed her with tender anxiety; they heard her step in the
court-yard, lightly as she trod. Like lovers, the three would often
sit silently together, understanding thus, better than by speech, the
eloquence of their souls. This profound sentiment, the life itself of
the two old people, animated their every thought. Here were not three
existences, but one,--one only, which, like the flame on the hearth,
divided itself into three tongues of fire. If, occasionally, some memory
of Napoleon's benefits and misfortunes, if the public events of the
moment distracted the minds of the old people from this source of their
constant solicitude, they could always talk of those interests without
affecting their community of thought, for Ginevra shared their political
passions. What more natural, therefore, than the ardor with which they
found a refuge in the heart of their only child?

Until now the occupations of public life had absorbed the energy of the
Baron di Piombo; but after leaving those employments he felt the need of
casting that energy into the last sentiment that remained to him. Apart
from the ties of parentage, there may have been, unknown to these three
despotic souls, another powerful reason for the intensity of their
reciprocal love: it was love undivided. Ginevra's whole heart belonged
to her father, as Piombo's whole heart belonged to his child; and if it
be true that we are bound to one another more by our defects than by
our virtues, Ginevra echoed in a marvellous manner the passions of her
father. There lay the sole imperfection of this triple life. Ginevra was
born unyielding of will, vindictive, and passionate, like her father in
his youth.

The Corsican had taken pleasure in developing these savage sentiments in
the heart of his daughter, precisely as a lion teaches the lion-cubs to
spring upon their prey. But this apprenticeship to vengeance having
no means of action in their family life, it came to pass that Ginevra
turned the principle against her father; as a child she forgave him
nothing, and he was forced to yield to her. Piombo saw nothing more than
childish nonsense in these fictitious quarrels, but the child was
all the while acquiring a habit of ruling her parents. In the midst,
however, of the tempests w