the
dawn I should like to send out messengers again; something may be
heard at Spezzia.'

'Vicenzo thinks they have gone to Leghorn, mother.'

'Has he heard anything!' said Lady Annabel, eagerly.

'No, but he is an excellent judge,' said Venetia, repeating all
Pauncefort's consolatory chatter. 'He knows the coast so well. He says
he is sure the wind would carry them on to Leghorn; and that accounts,
you know, mother, for George not returning. They are all at Leghorn.'

'Would that George would return,' murmured Lady Annabel; 'I wish I
could see again that sailor who said they were at Lerici. He was an
intelligent man.'

'Perhaps if we send down to the bay he may be there,' said Venetia.'

'Hush! I hear a step!' said Lady Annabel.

Venetia sprung up and opened the door, but it was only Pauncefort in
the vestibule.

'The household are all up, my lady,' said that important personage
entering; ''tis a beautiful morning. Vicenzo has run down to the bay,
my lady; I sent him off immediately. Vicenzo says he is certain sure
they are at Leghorn, my lady; and, this time three years, the very
same thing happened. They were fishing for anchovies, my lady, close
by, my lady, near Sarzana; two young men, or rather one about the same
age as master, and one like my lord; cousins, my lady, and just in the
same sort of boat, my lady; and there came on a squall, just the same
sort of squall, my lady; and they did not return home; and everyone
was frightened out of their wits, my lady, and their wives and
families quite distracted; and after all they were at Leghorn; for
this sort of wind always takes your open boats to Leghorn, Vicenzo
says.'

The sun rose, the household were all stirring, and many of them
abroad; the common routine of domestic duty seemed, by some general
yet not expressed understanding, to have ceased. The ladies descended
below at a very early hour, and went forth into the valley, once the
happy valley. What was to be its future denomination? Vicenzo returned
from the bay, and he contrived to return with cheering intelligence.
The master of a felucca who, in consequence of the squall had put in
at Lerici, and in the evening dropped down to Spezzia, had met an open
boat an hour before he reached Sarzana, and was quite confident that,
if it had put into port, it must have been, from the speed at which it
was going, a great distance down the coast. No wrecks had been heard
of in the neighbourhood. This intell