n which cheered the
eighteenth-century thinkers in their struggle for intellectual liberty
coloured with a delightful brightness this vision of a renewed humanity.
It threw its beams on every branch of research, and shone like an
aureole round those who laid down fortune and advancement to purchase
the new redemption of mankind. Foremost among these, as Odo now learned,
were many of his own countrymen. In his talks with Vivaldi he first
explored the course of Italian thought and heard the names of the great
jurists, Vico and Gravina, and of his own contemporaries, Filangieri,
Verri and Beccaria. Vivaldi lent him Beccaria's famous volume and
several numbers of the "Caffe," the brilliant gazette which Verri and
his associates were then publishing in Milan, and in which all the
questions of the day, theological, economic and literary, were discussed
with a freedom possible only under the lenient Austrian rule.

"Ah," Vivaldi cried, "Milan is indeed the home of the free spirit, and
were I not persuaded that a man's first duty is to improve the condition
of his own city and state, I should long ago have left this unhappy
kingdom; indeed I sometimes fancy I may yet serve my own people better
by proclaiming the truth openly at a distance than by whispering it in
their midst."

It was a surprise to Odo to learn that the new ideas had already taken
such hold in Italy, and that some of the foremost thinkers on scientific
and economic subjects were among his own countrymen. Like all
eighteenth-century Italians of his class he had been taught to look to
France as the source of all culture, intellectual and social; and he was
amazed to find that in jurisprudence, and in some of the natural
sciences, Italy led the learning of Europe.

Once or twice Fulvia showed herself for a moment; but her manner was
retiring and almost constrained, and her father always contrived an
excuse for dismissing her. This was the more noticeable as she continued
to appear at the meetings of the Honey-Bees, where she joined freely in
the conversation, and sometimes diverted the guests by playing on the
harpsichord or by recitations from the poets; all with such art and
grace, and withal so much simplicity, that it was clear she was
accustomed to the part. Odo was thus driven to the not unflattering
conclusion that she had been instructed to avoid his company; and after
the first disappointment he was too honest to regret it. He was deeply
drawn to the g