r had
bequeathed: it was a human sentiment of gratitude and delight, mixed
with something more mysterious, of fear and awe. Certainly she had seen
before those features; but when and how? Only when her thoughts had
sought to shape out her future, and when, in spite of all the attempts
to vision forth a fate of flowers and sunshine, a dark and chill
foreboding made her recoil back into her deepest self. It was a
something found that had long been sought for by a thousand restless
yearnings and vague desires, less of the heart than mind; not as when
youth discovers the one to be beloved, but rather as when the student,
long wandering after the clew to some truth in science, sees it glimmer
dimly before him, to beckon, to recede, to allure, and to wane again.
She fell at last into unquiet slumber, vexed by deformed, fleeting,
shapeless phantoms; and, waking, as the sun, through a veil of hazy
cloud, glinted with a sickly ray across the casement, she heard her
father settled back betimes to his one pursuit, and calling forth from
his Familiar a low mournful strain, like a dirge over the dead.

"And why," she asked, when she descended to the room below,--"why, my
father, was your inspiration so sad, after the joy of last night?"

"I know not, child. I meant to be merry, and compose an air in honour of
thee; but he is an obstinate fellow, this,--and he would have it so."

CHAPTER 1.IV.

E cosi i pigri e timidi desiri
Sprona.
"Gerusal. Lib.," cant. iv. lxxxviii.

(And thus the slow and timid passions urged.)

It was the custom of Pisani, except when the duties of his profession
made special demand on his time, to devote a certain portion of the
mid-day to sleep,--a habit not so much a luxury as a necessity to a man
who slept very little during the night. In fact, whether to compose
or to practice, the hours of noon were precisely those in which Pisani
could not have been active if he would. His genius resembled those
fountains full at dawn and evening, overflowing at night, and perfectly
dry at the meridian. During this time, consecrated by her husband to
repose, the signora generally stole out to make the purchases necessary
for the little household, or to enjoy (as what woman does not?) a little
relaxation in gossip with some of her own sex. And the day following
this brilliant triumph, how many congratulations would she have to
receive!

At these times it was Viola's habit to seat herself wi