ing-fits by their own unaided industry. They faint at the most inopportune times and under the most exasperating circumstances: when they are running away from banditti, or hiding from cruel relatives, or shut up by themselves in gloomy dungeons, with nobody to look after and resuscitate them. Their trembling limbs are always refusing to support them just when a little activity is really necessary for safety, and, though they live in an atmosphere of horrors, the smallest shock is more than they can endure with equanimity. In the Sicilian Romance, Julia's brother, desiring to speak to her for a minute, knocks gently at her door, whereupon, with the most unexpected promptness, "she shrieked and fainted;" and as the key happens to be turned on the inside, he is obliged to wait in the hall until she slowly regains her consciousness.
Nothing, however, can mar the decorous sentimentality which these young people exhibit in all their loves and sorrows. Emily the forlorn "touched the chords of her lute in solemn symphony," when the unenviable nature of her surroundings might reasonably have banished all music from her soul; Theodore paused to
