her father,
Colonel Ferrers, had a brother much younger than himself: his name was
Edmund, and he was my father.

"I recollect him very little, except that he was very kind to me, but
they tell me that he was a singularly handsome man, and very
accomplished, and greatly beloved by all who knew him.

"He was much younger than Uncle Rolf; he was still at college when
Uncle Rolf went out to India with his wife. He distinguished himself
there, and made a great many friends; his brilliant abilities
attracted the notice of rather an influential man; he offered him a
secretaryship, and soon afterward took him with him to Rome.

"There his success was even greater than it had been in London. Every
one conspired to spoil and flatter the handsome young Englishman. He
was admitted to the most select circles; the youthful queens of
society tried to find favor in his eyes; he might have made more than
one splendid match, for there was quite a _furor_ about him, but he
soon put a stop to his brilliant career by a most imprudent marriage,
for he fell in love with a Roman flower-girl and made her his wife.

"Ah, you look shocked, Fern; society was shocked too, they had made so
much of him, you see.

"People said he was mad, that Bianca's dark eyes had bewitched him; it
may be so, but from the day when he first saw her tying up her roses
and lilies on the steps of the fountain, to the last moment when he
laid his head like a tired child on her bosom to die, he never loved
any other woman but her, and he loved her well. But it was not a happy
match; how could it be? it was too unequal, he had all the gentleness
and calm that belonged to the Ferrers, and she--she brought him,
beside her dark Madonna beauty, the fierce Italian nature, the
ungovernable temper that became the heritage of her unhappy daughter."

Fern started as though she would have spoken, but Crystal only pressed
her hand and went on--

"When a few months had passed over, and the fame of Bianca's great
beauty had got abroad, society relaxed its frowns a little, and
received its erring favorite into its arms again.

"They had left Rome and had settled at Florence, and friends began to
flock round them; Bianca was only a peasant girl, but love taught her
refinement, and she did not disgrace her husband's choice; but it
would have been more for her happiness, and my father's too, if they
had never withdrawn from the seclusion of their quiet villa.

"For very soon th