hich the father was fond of exciting, a look,
a word of tenderness, sufficed to pacify their angry souls, and often
they were never so near to a kiss as when they were threatening each
other vehemently.

Nevertheless, for the last five years, Ginevra, grown wiser than her
father, avoided such scenes. Her faithfulness, her devotion, the love
which filled her every thought, and her admirable good sense had got
the better of her temper. And yet, for all that, a very great evil had
resulted from her training; Ginevra lived with her father and mother on
the footing of an equality which is always dangerous.

Piombo and his wife, persons without education, had allowed Ginevra to
study as she pleased. Following her caprices as a young girl, she had
studied all things for a time, and then abandoned them,--taking up and
leaving each train of thought at will, until, at last, painting had
proved to be her dominant passion. Ginevra would have made a noble woman
had her mother been capable of guiding her studies, of enlightening her
mind, and bringing into harmony her gifts of nature; her defects came
from the fatal education which the old Corsican had found delight in
giving her.

After marching up and down the room for some time, Piombo rang the bell;
a servant entered.

"Go and meet Mademoiselle Ginevra," said his master.

"I always regret our carriage on her account," remarked the baroness.

"She said she did not want one," replied Piombo, looking at his wife,
who, accustomed for forty years to habits of obedience, lowered her eyes
and said no more.

Already a septuagenarian, tall, withered, pale, and wrinkled, the
baroness exactly resembled those old women whom Schnetz puts into the
Italian scenes of his "genre" pictures. She was so habitually
silent that she might have been taken for another Mrs. Shandy; but,
occasionally, a word, look, or gesture betrayed that her feelings still
retained all the vigor and the freshness of their youth. Her dress,
devoid of coquetry, was often in bad taste. She usually sat passive,
buried in a low sofa, like a Sultana Valide, awaiting or admiring her
Ginevra, her pride, her life. The beauty, toilet, and grace of her
daughter seemed to have become her own. All was well with her if Ginevra
was happy. Her hair was white, and a few strands only were seen above
her white and wrinkled forehead, or beside her hollow cheeks.

"It is now fifteen days," she said, "since Ginevra made a practice of