of a young Neapolitan beauty, the daughter of a merchant, whose name was Di Capigna, less celebrated for external charms than for those seductive and elegant accomplishments, “that take the reason prisoner.”
Her father, she had been informed, did not long survive the loss of his daughter’s reputation, which event so seriously affected the Signora that she suddenly left the Marchese, some believing that she was dead, and others that she had thrown herself into a convent; but the truth of this singular affair was not known.
Every circumstance seemed to favour the opinion that this might be the child of the Signora Di Capigna, whose birth, added to her own distresses, probably occasioned her death. She had not indeed heard of an infant; but this, considering the secrecy with which affairs of this nature are usually conducted, was not a matter of surprise, particularly as the marriage of the Mar-chese
