illiant career from France to Italy, and from thence to Austria and
St. Petersburg, leaving Caroline with her guardian and maid, in a
village near Florence, where she could perfect herself in Italian and
music at the same time.

There Caroline's life really began. They were staying at a pretty villa,
terraced up from the banks of a bright little stream, that emptied
itself into the Arno, so isolated and lonely, that it was perfect heaven
to Brown, who was set down at once as the young lady's father, and to
Eliza, who delighted in the chance of rest this arrangement promised.

While in Florence, Brown had taken his charge to one of the best
teachers in Europe, who consented to break through his usual rules and
give her lessons in the pretty home she had decided on. He would also
charge himself with selecting a teacher of the language, who should make
her pronunciation of the sweet Tuscan perfect as her voice, which was,
in fact, something wonderful.

Some persons were in the musician's room when these arrangements were
made, and one of them, a young man, drew slowly toward the piano, like a
bird charmed against its will, and listened with rapt attention while
Caroline took her first lesson. The girl looked up once or twice, as her
voice rang out with unusual power, and unconsciously answered back the
warm smile that enkindled his whole face. A musician himself--she knew
by the very expression of his dark eyes.

Brown saw it too, and was delighted with the effect of her genius; which
he, in his partial affection, deemed transcendent.

"He is a professor, I dare say, or perhaps a great singer," thought the
kind old man; "but she charmed him at once."

Brown was confirmed in this idea when the eminent teacher he had
consulted fell into a discussion with the man in Italian, which Caroline
did not hear, and Brown himself could not understand, but which
evidently turned upon Caroline's performance. They were both delighted
with it; that was evident from the very ardor with which they spoke.
Brown was pleased with all this, but Caroline, perhaps, remembered it
with greater interest than he had felt, for the young man's face haunted
her long after she was settled in the pretty villa, and had made herself
at home among the vines and flowers that turned those terraces into a
jungle of fruit and blossoms.

Nothing could be more lovely than the home Brown had chosen, and
certainly no place could have been found more completel