ry. The wind roared
with a noise that overpowered the thunder; then came a rattling shower
of hail, with stones as big as pigeons' eggs, succeeded by rain, not
in showers, but literally in cataracts. The only thing to which
a tempest of rain in Italy can be compared is the bursting of a
waterspout. Venetia could scarcely believe that this could be the same
day of which the golden morning had found her among the sunny hills of
Arqua. This unexpected vicissitude induced Lady Annabel to alter her
plans, and she resolved to rest at Rovigo, where she was glad to find
that they could be sheltered in a commodious inn.

The building had originally been a palace, and in its halls and
galleries, and the vast octagonal vestibule on which the principal
apartments opened, it retained many noble indications of the purposes
to which it was formerly destined.

At present, a lazy innkeeper who did nothing; his bustling wife,
who seemed equally at home in the saloon, the kitchen, and even the
stable; and a solitary waiter, were the only inmates, except the
Herberts, and a travelling party, who had arrived shortly after them,
and who, like them, had been driven by stress of weather to seek
refuge at a place where otherwise they had not intended to remain.

A blazing fire of pine wood soon gave cheerfulness to the vast and
somewhat desolate apartment into which our friends had been ushered;
their sleeping-room was adjoining, but separated. In spite of the
lamentations of Pauncefort, who had been drenched to the skin, and who
required much more waiting upon than her mistress, Lady Annabel and
Venetia at length produced some degree of comfort. They drew the table
near the fire; they ensconced themselves behind an old screen; and,
producing their books and work notwithstanding the tempest, they
contrived to domesticate themselves at Rovigo.

'I cannot help thinking of Arqua and its happy tenants, mamma,' said
Venetia.

'And yet, perhaps, they may have their secret sorrows,' said
Lady Annabel. 'I know not why, I always associate seclusion with
unhappiness.'

Venetia remembered Cherbury. Their life at Cherbury was like the life
of the German at Arqua. A chance visitor to Cherbury in their absence,
viewing the beautiful residence and the fair domain, and listening to
the tales which they well might hear of all her mother's grace and
goodness, might perhaps too envy its happy occupiers. But were they
happy? Had they no secret sorrows? Was