George W. M. Reynolds

“ He will soon forget thee; and when he shall have learnt to love another there will no longer be any necessity for thee to live an existence of concealment.'
"Thus spoke my aunt, dear Francisco, and I dared not gainsay her. When you came the last time. I heard your voice; I listened from my chamber door to all you said to my aunt, and I longed to fly into your arms. You went away and my heart was nearly broken. Some days afterward we learnt the strange disappearance of the Lady Nisida and then knew that you must have received a severe blow, for I was well aware how much you loved her. ”

“ You informed me how you were liberated from the convent, and you mentioned the name of the Countess of Arestino, whom circumstances had made your companion in that establishment, and to whom your aunt gave an asylum. Know you not, dearest Flora, that fame reports not well of that same Giulia of Arestino—and that a woman of tarnished reputation is no fitting associate for an innocent and artless maiden such as thou? ”

“ At an open casement on the ground floor, an elderly female, very plainly but very neatly attired, and wearing a placid smile and a good-natured expression upon a countenance which had once been handsome, sat watching the glorious spectacle of the setting sun. ”

“ On the night following the one in which the banditti stormed the convent, as I ere now detailed to your ears, I returned home to my aunt. When the excitement of our meeting was past, and when we were alone together, I threw myself at her feet, confessed all that had passed between thee and me, and implored her advice.
"'Flora,' she said, while her tears fell upon me as I knelt, 'no happiness will come to thee, my child, from this attachment which has already plunged thee into so much misery. It is beyond all doubt certain that the relations of the count were the authors of thy imprisonment ”