THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. 145 



Bianca's father, who only thought (poor old man) that she 

 had been out to look at the fireworks., did not observe her 

 agitation and unwonted paleness. Parent and child, their 

 evening prayers having been, as usual, offered up together, soon 

 sought their humble pillows ; but when sleep, long absent, 

 weighed down the maiden's eye- lids, visions of terror haunted 

 her slumbers. These were at one moment clear and defined, 

 the next dim and indistinct ; but all seemed rendered visible 

 by the wavering, scintillating light of the fatal Lucciole, 

 which themselves appeared ever and anon to assume gigantic 

 size, and to put on human faces, once known to the beautiful 

 dreamer, but long since numbered with the dead. 



We may here observe, that Bianca's superstitious dread of 

 the fire-flies, and her belief that they were animated by departed 

 souls, were not peculiar to herself, but entertained in common 

 with the peasantry of her country, though the prevalent 

 notions w r ere in her case strengthened by some legendary tale 



which ran current in her family. 



*****# 



Twelve months had brought round another Eve of St. John, 

 and brought with it, and on just such a summer night, the 

 like festivities the like illuminations. 



Had the year been productive of as little change to our 

 high-born youth and low-born maiden ? To Bianca, the proud 

 noble, who should have been as nothing, was, in womanly 

 devotion, still everything. Yet had he become an everything 



VOL. II. K 



