the Signor,
her husband, who, though he was not averse to the profit which sometimes
results from such parties, had always shewn a contempt of the frivolous
parade that sometimes attends them; till she considered that his pride
might be gratified by displaying, among his own friends, in his native
city, the wealth which he had neglected in France; and she courted again
the splendid illusions that had charmed her before.

The travellers, as they descended, gradually, exchanged the region of
winter for the genial warmth and beauty of spring. The sky began to
assume that serene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy;
patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily among
the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts
from their broken sides; and the buds of the oak and mountain ash were
expanding into foliage. Descending lower, the orange and the myrtle,
every now and then, appeared in some sunny nook, with their yellow
blossoms peeping from among the dark green of their leaves, and mingling
with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate and the paler ones of the
arbutus, that ran mantling to the crags above; while, lower still,
spread the pastures of Piedmont, where early flocks were cropping the
luxuriant herbage of spring.

The river Doria, which, rising on the summit of Mount Cenis, had dashed
for many leagues over the precipices that bordered the road, now began
to assume a less impetuous, though scarcely less romantic character, as
it approached the green vallies of Piedmont, into which the travellers
descended with the evening sun; and Emily found herself once more amid
the tranquil beauty of pastoral scenery; among flocks and herds, and
slopes tufted with woods of lively verdure and with beautiful shrubs,
such as she had often seen waving luxuriantly over the alps above. The
verdure of the pasturage, now varied with the hues of early flowers,
among which were yellow ranunculuses and pansey violets of delicious
fragrance, she had never seen excelled.--Emily almost wished to become
a peasant of Piedmont, to inhabit one of the pleasant embowered cottages
which she saw peeping beneath the cliffs, and to pass her careless hours
among these romantic landscapes. To the hours, the months, she was to
pass under the dominion of Montoni, she looked with apprehension; while
those which were departed she remembered with regret and sorrow.

In the present scenes her fancy often g