an I
ever knew, and nobody has found it out."

"I believe it is true, Corona," said Giovanni, turning away and leaning
upon the chimneypiece, his head supported on one hand. "I believe you are
right. I am ambitious: if I only had the brains that some men have I
would do great things."

"You are wrong, Giovanni. It is neither brains nor ambition nor strength
that you lack--it is opportunity."

"They say that a man who has anything in him creates opportunities for
himself," answered Giovanni, rather sadly. "I fear it is because I really
have nothing in me that I can do nothing. It sometimes makes me very
unhappy to think so. I suppose that is because my vanity is wounded."

"Do not talk like that," said Corona. "You have vanity, of course, but it
is of the large kind, and I call it ambition. It is not only because I
love you better than any man was ever loved before that I say that. It is
that I know it instinctively I have heard you say that these are
unsettled times. Wait; your opportunity will come, as it came often to
your forefathers in other centuries."

"I hardly think that their example is a good one," replied Giovanni, with
a smile.

"They generally did something remarkable in remarkable times," said
Corona. "You will do the same. Your father, for instance, would not."

"He is far more clever than I," objected Giovanni.

"Clever! It passes for cleverness. He is quick, active, a good talker, a
man with a ready wit and a sharp answer--kind-hearted when the fancy
takes him, cruel when he is so disposed--but not a man of great
convictions or of great actions. You are very different from him."

"Will you draw my portrait, Corona?" asked Giovanni.

"As far as I know you. You are a man quick to think and slow to make a
decision. You are not brilliant in conversation--you see I do not flatter
you; I am just. You have the very remarkable quality of growing cold
when others grow hot, and of keeping the full use of your faculties in
any situation. When you have made a decision, you cannot be moved from
it; but you are open to conviction in argument. You have a great repose
of manner, which conceals a very restless brain. All your passions are
very strong. You never forgive, never forget, and scarcely ever repent.
Beneath all, you have an untamable ambition which has not yet found its
proper field. Those are your qualities--and I love them all, and you
more than them all."

Corona finished her speech by throwing