n, but when it was reached, she showed her
a travelling-carriage stocked with lint and linen, wine in jars,
chocolate, cases of brandy, tea, coffee, needles, thread, twine,
scissors, knives; saying, as she displayed them, "there, my dear, all my
money has gone in that equipment, so you must pay on the road."

"This doesn't leave me a choice, then," said Victoria, joining her
humour.

"Ah, but think over it," Laura suggested.

"No! not think at all," cried Vittoria.

"You do not fear Carlo's anger?"

"If I think, I am weak as water. Let us go."

Countess d'Isorella wrote to Carlo: "Your Vittoria is away after the
king to Pavia. They tell me she stood up in her carriage on the Ponte
del Po-'Viva il Re d'Italia!' waving the cross of Savoy. As I have
previously assured you, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was
a mistake. Public characters should not let their personal preferences
betrumpeted: a diplomatic truism:--but I must add, least of all a
cantatrice for a king. The famous Greek amateur--the prop of failing
finances--is after her to arrest her for breach of engagement. You
wished to discover an independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you
not? One would suppose her your wife--or widow. She looked a superb
thing the last night she sang. She is not, in my opinion, wanting in
height. If, behind all that innocence and candour, she has any trained
artfulness, she will beat us all. Heaven bless your arms!"

The demonstration mentioned by the countess had not occurred.

Vittoria's letter to her lover missed him. She wrote from Pavia, after
she had taken her decisive step.

Carlo Ammiani went into the business of the war with the belief that his
betrothed had despised his prayer to her.

He was under Colonel Corte, operating on the sub-Alpine range of hills
along the line of the Chiese South-eastward. Here the volunteers, formed
of the best blood of Milan, the gay and brave young men, after marching
in the pride of their strength to hold the Alpine passes and bar Austria
from Italy while the fight went on below, were struck by a sudden
paralysis. They hung aloft there like an arm cleft from the body.
Weapons, clothes, provisions, money, the implements of war, were
withheld from them. The Piedmontese officers despatched to watch their
proceedings laughed at them like exasperating senior scholars examining
the accomplishments of a lower form. It was manifest that Count Medole
and the Government of Milan wo