me?"

But he came not as the fresh colours of spring deepened with the rich
maturity of summer; and Corona, gazing down the valley, saw the change
that came over the fair earth, and half guessed the change that was
coming over her own life. She had sought solitude instinctively, but
she had not known what it would bring her. She had desired to honour her
dead husband by withdrawing from the world for a time and thinking of him
and remembering him. She had done so, but the youth in her rebelled at
last against the constant memory of old age--of an old age, too, which
had passed away from her and was dead for ever.

It was right to dwell for a time upon the thought of her widowhood, but
the voice said it would not be always right. The calm and noiseless tide
of the old man's ceasing life had ebbed slowly and reluctantly from her
shore, and she had followed the sad sea in her sorrow to the furthest
verge of its retreat; but as she stood upon the edge of the stagnant
waters, gazing far out and trying to follow even further the slow
subsiding ooze, the tide had turned upon her unawares, the fresh seaward
breeze sprang up and broke the dead calm with the fresh motion of crisp
ripples that once more flowed gladly over the dreary sand, and the waters
of life plashed again and laughed gladly together around her feet.

The thought of Giovanni--the one thought that again and again kept
recurring in her mind--grew very sweet,--as sweet as it had once been
bitter. There was nothing to stop its growth now, and she let it have its
way. What did it matter, so long as he did not come near her--for the
present? Some day he would come; she wondered when, and how long he would
keep his promise. But meanwhile she was not unhappy, and she went about
her occupations as before; only sometimes she would go alone at evening
to the balcony that faced the higher mountains, and there she would stand
for half an hour gazing southward towards the precipitous rocks that
caught the red glare of the sinking sun, and she asked herself if he were
there, or whether, as report had told her, he were in the far north.
It was but half a day's ride over the hills, he had said. But strain her
sight as she would, she could not pierce the heavy crags nor see into the
wooded dells beyond. He had said he would pass the summer there; had he
changed his mind?

But she was not unhappy. There was that in her which forbade unhappiness,
which would have broken out into