Charlotte Smith

“ My destiny still appeared dreadful, but as there seemed to be no design to destroy my life, I trusted that whoever had taken so much trouble to remove me would at length relent, and that I should be one day restored to you, Montalbert. ”

“ The woman, fixing on me a look where pity seemed stifled by contempt and prejudice, answered, that I was in Calabria, and that, if my confinement had the happy effect of leading me from the heretical and bad opinions I had been brought up in, I ought to thank the blessed Saints who had permitted my escape from perdition. I cannot do justice to the strength of her language, for it was a dialect quite unlike common Italian; but the countenance and manner of the woman it would be still more difficult to paint. ”

“ I found that I was in an immense fortress, or castle, situated on an eminence, and covering for a considerable space its unequal summit. Great square towers, more ancient than the rest, projected over the declivity; but the spaces between these had more the appearance of old Italian houses, such as I had been used to see. On the side next the sea there was a deep fossé, beyond which the hill fell perpendicularly into a sort of marsh ”

“ I don't know, however, exactly as to that; perhaps they may not land on the coast again, not just here, for they know there is nothing of value for them to take: but then, indeed, we have no defense; formerly there was a guard kept at the castle, and those guns that you see there below were kept loaded to drive away the infidels, but all that is laid aside now. For my part I am not much afraid.'
"I now doubted whether Cattina had not told me this, to add to my punishment by all the aggravation of imaginary terrors. ”