oubt
there was Theresa's undoubted beauty; but that was evanescent, and the
lady already showed signs of a too rapidly ripening maturity. Their
romantic engagement could not blot out of his mind the memory of the
long humiliation she had compelled him to endure, or the subsequent
display of overstrained excitement in her which had provoked him to a
revulsion of feeling. In calmer moments a pleasanter picture rose
before his mind; but then again his pride would take alarm and whisper
that in this unequal union he must always be the subordinate partner,
or perhaps that he would again become the sport of her caprices, as he
had been before.

After his long morning rambles among the hills he usually sat down to
rest on a bench placed under an old olive-tree, a short distance above
the town, and afterwards walked back to breakfast. One morning two
persons--an elderly gentleman and a young lady--took their places on
the bench as he rose to go. The same thing happened the next morning
at the same time. On the following day he lingered, not unwillingly,
a little longer--long enough to observe what the lady was like and
to exchange a word or two with her companion. Italians glide easily
into conversation and acquaintance, and Mansana ascertained without
difficulty that the old gentleman was a pensioned official of the
preceding _regime_, and that the young lady was his daughter--a
girl of about fifteen, fresh from a convent school. She sat close by
her father's side, and spoke scarcely more than a few words--just
enough to reveal the exquisite sweetness of her voice.

Afterwards Mansana met the pair daily, and the meetings were no longer
accidental; he waited on the hill-side till he saw them ascending from
the town, and then made his way to the bench. He enjoyed the quiet
friendliness of their manner. The old gentleman talked willingly
enough, though with a certain caution, about politics. When Mansana had
listened to his remarks, he would say a few words to the daughter. The
girl's growing likeness to her father was easy to trace. There was a
sort of wrinkled fulness in the old face, which showed that its owner
had once been a man of the sleek, rotund type. The daughter's small,
plump figure promised to develop in that direction; but at present it
had only a soft and budding roundness of contour, that looked charming
in the simple morning-dress, in which alone Mansana had seen her. The
father's eyes had lost their colour and