say or do something which savoured too much of her native village. But
Colomba watched him constantly, and regulated all her own movements by
his. Sometimes she looked at him fixedly, with a strange expression of
sadness, and then, if Orso's eyes met hers, he was the first to turn
them away, as though he would evade some question which his sister was
mentally addressing to him, the sense of which he understood only
too well. Everybody talked French, for the colonel could only express
himself very badly in Italian. Colomba understood French, and
even pronounced the few words she was obliged to exchange with her
entertainers tolerably well.

After dinner, the colonel, who had noticed the sort of constraint which
existed between the brother and sister, inquired of Orso, with
his customary frankness, whether he did not wish to be alone with
Mademoiselle Colomba, offering, in that case, to go into the next room
with his daughter. But Orso hastened to thank him, and to assure him
they would have plenty of time to talk at Pietranera--this was the name
of the village where he was to take up his abode.

The colonel then resumed his customary position on the sofa, and Miss
Nevil, after attempting several subjects of conversation, gave up all
hope of inducing the fair Colomba to talk, and begged Orso to read her
a canto out of Dante, her favourite poet. Orso chose the canto of the
Inferno, containing the episode of Francesca da Rimini, and began to
read, as impressively as he was able, the glorious tiercets which so
admirably express the risk run by two young persons who venture to read
a love-story together. As he read on Colomba drew nearer to the table,
and raised her head, which she had kept lowered. Her wide-open eyes,
shone with extraordinary fire, she grew red and pale by turns, and
stirred convulsively in her chair. How admirable is the Italian
organization, which can understand poetry without needing a pedant to
explain its beauties!

When the canto was finished:

"How beautiful that is!" she exclaimed. "Who wrote it, brother?"

Orso was a little disconcerted, and Miss Lydia answered with a smile
that it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead for
centuries.

"You shall read Dante," said Orso, "when you are at Pietranera."

"Good heavens, how beautiful it is!" said Colomba again, and she
repeated three or four tiercets which she had remembered, speaking at
first in an undertone; then, growing excited