desires as thy mother did. It is true, I have been careful to keep thee
aloof from the debasing influence of thy own sex, with their
sparrow-like frivolity and their enslaving superstition, except, indeed,
from that of our cousin Brigida, who may well serve as a scarecrow and a
warning. And though--since I agree with the divine Petrarca, when he
declares, quoting the `Aulularia' of Plautus, who again was indebted for
the truth to the supreme Greek intellect, `Optimam foeminam nullam esse,
alia licet alia pejor sit'--I cannot boast that thou art entirely lifted
out of that lower category to which Nature assigned thee, nor even that
in erudition thou art on a par with the more learned women of this age;
thou art, nevertheless--yes, Romola mia," said the old man, his pedantry
again melting into tenderness, "thou art my sweet daughter, and thy
voice is as the lower notes of the flute, `dulcis, durabilis, clara,
pura, secans aera et auribus sedens,' according to the choice words of
Quintilian; and Bernardo tells me thou art fair, and thy hair is like
the brightness of the morning, and indeed it seems to me that I discern
some radiance from thee. Ah! I know how all else looks in this room,
but thy form I only guess at. Thou art no longer the little woman six
years old, that faded for me into darkness; thou art tall, and thy arm
is but little below mine. Let us walk together."

The old man rose, and Romola, soothed by these beams of tenderness,
looked happy again as she drew his arm within hers, and placed in his
right-hand the stick which rested at the side of his chair. While Bardo
had been sitting, he had seemed hardly more than sixty: his face, though
pale, had that refined texture in which wrinkles and lines are never
deep; but now that he began to walk he looked as old as he really was--
rather more than seventy; for his tall spare frame had the student's
stoop of the shoulders, and he stepped with the undecided gait of the
blind.

"No, Romola," he said, pausing against the bust of Hadrian, and passing
his stick from the right to the left that he might explore the familiar
outline with a "seeing hand."

"There will be nothing else to preserve my memory and carry down my name
as a member of the great republic of letters--nothing but my library and
my collection of antiquities. And they are choice," continued Bardo,
pressing the bust and speaking in a tone of insistance. "The
collections of Niccolo I know were