in the stranger’s mien which interested Beatrice in him, and she thought of him in her dreams throughout the livelong night. The next day the gondola of the cavalier shot by her window, and—but why need we protract the story? They met, often, daily, Some mysterious link seemed to unite the soul of Beatrice with that of the cavalier. There was in his earnest eye, in his eloquent tones, and in the constant play of his fine countenance a witchery which the heart of that imaginative young girl might not resist; and when she learned that the cavalier was none other than the poet over whose impassioned sonnets she had often wept, her bosom yielded, at once, and without a struggle to the delicious feelings which stole, like a dream, over her. She loved—loved for the first time—loved with all the intensity of a warm and innocent young heart.
There was one thing, however, which in their mutual transport the lovers had forgotten—and that was the well known determination of Vivaldo to wed Beatrice to his nephew. The young poet, though descended from a noble house, was but a poor scholar at Padua; and the haughty guardian of Beatrice would sooner have seen her in her grave than have wedded her to the penniless Signor Adanta, Alas! too soon were the lovers made aware of this. Betrayed by the maid of Beatrice, they were torn apart, and while Adanta was left wounded almost to the death, Beatrice was hurried off to her guardian’s summer house on the Brenta. Long months elapsed before the lovera heard of each other, during which time Beatrice suffered from a high fever, brought on by het ignorance of her lover's fate. Her lover too but slowly recovered from his wound. At length Adanta was able to leave his chamber. His first duty was to endeavor to see Beatrice, and in this endeavor, after surmounting incredible difficulties, he succeeded. Beatrice was pale with recent illness. In vain they essayed to form some plan by which to escape from their difficulties; for while they were yet conversing on the subject, the spies of Vivaldo discovered the lovers, and Adanta only escaped by the most determined bravery. From that hour every attempt at an interview betwixt the lovers had been foiled by the myrmidons of Beatrice’s guardian. Watched incessantly, she found it impossible even to open a communication with her lover. Meantime her guardian grew every day more pressing in his demand that she should marry his nephew. Beatrice, however, finally refused. Her love for Adanta only strengthened under persecution. And daily did those persecutions increase, until life became almost intolerable, and she sank into that state of pensive melancholy, feom which she was aroused by the unexpected appearance of her lover, as we have just narrated.
While we have been relating these facts, the two lovers had been engaged in telling each others history since they last met. But Beatrice only reveled half the persecutions she endured, fearful, if she told the whole truth, that her lover's fiery nature would break out in some act of signal revenge. Her judgment saw that the resolution to which he had come was the wisest for both; and she only prayed that he might set out in safety, trusting with all a woman's hopefulness that, at the end of the promised time, he might return to claim her for his bride,
“And now, dearest,” said her lover, “I must go. The shades of evening are already darkening the valley. Your absence from the house, if prolonged, will attract notice, The saints only know by what good fortune I made my way unobserved to this, your favorite retreat. Sancta Maria must smile on us, else we should have been seen ere now by some of Vivaldo’s myrmidons— God's curse be on them! Again, farewell!” and with these words, tearing himself from the weeping girl, he darted into the neighboring shrubbery, Pausing a moment, he waved his hand and said, “before a year— remember?" and then diving deeper into the underwood, was lost, the next moment, to the sight.
For many minutes after the form of her lover had disappeared, Beatrice stood gazing on the spot where he had last been seen. Then, heaving a deep sigh, she slowly left the chapel, and returned to the house. Had she seen the dark malicious expression of the eye of a dwarf, who, the next moment, stepped from behind a ruined arch of the chapel, she would have felt that her lover’s and her own conversation had been overheard, and that before an hour, Vivaldo would be in possession of all their plans.
The moon was yet scarcely above the tree-tops when the Duke Vivaldo entered the chamber where Beatrice sat musing on her late interview with her lover. She started at the sound of approaching footsteps, and rose to receive her guardian. He waved her sternly to be seated. Auguring from his manner the errand on which he came, the lady sank trembling into her seat. It was some moments before the Duke spoke, during which delay he kept his cold grey eye fixed sternly on the lady Beatrice, as if he would have read her very soul. At length he began,
“Lady,” he said, “I have sought you, at this unseasonable hour, in order to tell you to prepare to return to Venice in the morning. The waters of the Brenta,” he continued ironically, “methinks grow unhealthy, and such late hours as you have kept tonight do not agree with you. In Venice there will he no occasion to loiter in old ruins until after twilight.” And then suddenly dropping his sarcastic tone, he continued, “but I see you understand me, and I will speak plainly to you. Know then, that I am in possession of what passed at your stolen interview with your lover—I know all your plans. You foolishly thought that you could meet unnoticed,—but I have spies on your every action.
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