"

"That I am come; but she can not know me even by name."

"Ah, Excellency, can you think so? Many and many a time has she talked to
me of you, and I have heard her pray to the holy Madonna to bless you, and
in a voice so sweet--"

"Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house, and we will wait
without for the Padrone. Nay, I need the air, my friend." Harley, as he
said this, broke from Giacomo, and approached Violante.

The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts of the dull
garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when he had gone forth to answer
the bell; and she, unconscious of the fears of which she was the object,
had felt something of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate, and
the sight of a stranger in close and friendly conference with the unsocial
Giacomo.

As Harley now neared her with that singular grace of movement which
belonged to him, a thrill shot through her heart--she knew not why. She did
not recognize his likeness to the sketch taken by her father, from his
recollections of Harley's early youth. She did not guess who he was; and
yet she felt herself color, and, naturally fearless though she was, turned
away with a vague alarm.

"Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina," said Harley, in Italian; "but I
am so old a friend of your father's that I can not feel as a stranger to
yourself."

Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes, so intelligent and so
innocent--eyes full of surprise, but not displeased surprise. And Harley
himself stood amazed, and almost abashed, by the rich and marvelous beauty
that beamed upon him. "My father's friend," she said hesitatingly, "and I
never to have seen you!"

"Ah, Signorina," said Harley (and something of his native humor, half
arch, half sad, played round his lip), "you are mistaken there; you have
seen me before, and you received me much more kindly then--"

"Signor!" said Violante, more and more surprised, and with a yet richer
color on her cheeks.

Harley, who had now recovered from the first effect of her beauty, and who
regarded her as men of his years and character are apt to regard ladies in
their teens, as more child than woman, suffered himself to be amused by
her perplexity; for it was in his nature, that the graver and more
mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give play and whim to his
spirits.

"Indeed, Signorina," said he demurely, "you insisted then on placing one
of those fair hands in mine; the o