64 The Convent of Catania. [Juxy; 
host! I may not hear that garrulous tongue of thine again ; thy custo- 
mary seat is vacant; but I remember well the accents and purport of 
thy voice, and in no matter more faithfully than when our converse was 
about this tenantless old ruin. How thy lip quivered to tell its history, 
and the eye not dimmed by seventy winters, lost something of its bright- 
ness, when so sad a tale was to be recounted. If an interval of some 
half dozen years, and the treachery of all human recollections, be not too 
severely estimated, I may, even now, be able to present a detail of those 
occurrences, which were so eloquently described by thee, to a listener 
neither uninterested nor forgetful. 
In the vicinity of Catania, where the links of family descent are pre- 
served with such jealous care, there existed no prouder or more noble 
house than that of the Alessi. The old count, in whom were now vested 
all the hereditary dignities of his race, felt for his daughter Rosina, a 
love deeper and more solicitous than might have been expected from the 
sternness of his general character. But her mother, with a dying injunc- 
tion, charged him to be gentle as herself to the deserted girl ; and in that 
hour, when all his manly spirit was broken, these words wound them- 
selves around his heart, beloved as the earthly farewell of his dear com- 
panion, and sacred as the counsel of one so soon to be divine. 
And for Rosina, did she not merit all the tenderness that the most 
affectionate parent could bestow? What eye was brighter, whose smile 
could return a readier expression of love, than that of his only daughter ? 
She was the most “ gracious creature born ;”—with all the light-hearted 
innocence and prattle of a mere child—matured by the first dawnings of 
womanhood. Grave, or gay, according to her mood, disguising nothing, 
affecting nothing, but by her father’s side ever to be found, like a ray of 
sunshine in his path. It was beautiful to see the fair thing with all her 
gentleness and feminine timidity, contrasted with the rugged old soldier, 
whose frowns, multiplied by long trials in a world he hated, were 
scarcely ever softened by aught else around him. He had a son—not 
such a one asa father’s hopes had pourtrayed—and Rosina was the only 
staff of his declining years. 
It happened that a young Neapolitan was at this time a visitor on their 
island. He came with no passports of admission into the principal fami- 
lies, and was, therefore, held as an adventurer, or one of doubtful blood, 
He had wandered over the beautiful scenes of Sicily, and by chance 
encountered, in one of the most lovely of them all, that innocent girl, 
who had hitherto known nothing of life but its smiles. It were needless 
to recount by what accidents they met again, and by what expedients 
they afterwards repeated their interviews ; still more needless would it — 
be to say how the stranger at first amused, then attracted the companion — 
of many concealed meetings, which were concealed, not from any fear on 
her part, but because he so desired it, and the experience of young love 
soon showed them that these stolen moments were the “ sweeter for the 
« theft.” The light-hearted girl lost something of her natural deport- 
ment ; her mood was not so variable, nor her step so light as formerly. 
In her solitude, she mused or looked on all things wistfully. With her 
father she had lost the quick speech, and listening look, of former days, 
and she, who had been as the shadow of river-trees, thrown upon the 
water, ever moving, and restless, and uncertain, but still the image and - 
companion of her sturdy sire, was now become solitary, and abstracted, 
and fixed, as though her young spirit had. been already blighted. 
