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Giulietta—A Tale of the Fourteenth Century.563

and energy found a ready career to power and honour in the church. It may be believed that Aldobrandini would not have exchanged the waking certainties of his ambition for the realization of all his once—romantic fantasies; but, for a moment, the flood of years rolled back, the woman he had once so loved was dying at his side, and feeling became but the more bitter from the consciousness of the vanity of indulgence.

"Giulietta," at length, he said, in a low and broken tone, "years have passed since you and I spoke of the future as of a thing in which we took interest together. Then we spoke in vain: not so now; for, let the remembrance of our own youth be the pledge how precious another—your—Giulietta shall be in my sight."

The countess extended her emaciated hand towards him. Aldobrandini remembered it when its perfect beauty had been a model for the sculptor; he took it tenderly. Could it be the rigid and ascetic priest whose tears fell heavily on the dying Giulietta's hand? The lady was the first to recover her self. "Aldobrandini," she whispered, "I trust her happiness wholly to you." The girls now re-appeared in the garden, the cardinal himself beckoned them in, and, with a few brief but kind words, took his departure to the city.

Deeper and deeper fell the shades of melancholy over that sea-side villa. Day by day, those youthful sisters became more conscious of the approach of death. Their voices took a lower tone; their steps were more subdued; and their laughter, once so frequent, was unheard. At length, the worn eyes of the countess closed for ever: but their latest look was on her children.

Drearily did the rest of the summer pass away; and, when the leaves fell from the garden, and the bleak sea-breeze swept through the desolate lattices, it was with a feeling of rejoicing that the two elder sisters heard that they were to leave the villa, and pass the next year in the convent of Santa Caterina: after which their home would be the palace of the cardinal. But Giulietta left her mother's late dwelling with reluctance: it seemed almost like another separation. She visited and re-visited every spot which she could remember that the countess had once loved, and parted from it with many and bitter tears, as if it had been an animate object conscious of her regret. But youth is as a flowing stream, on whose current the shadow may rest but not remain; sunshine is natural to its glad waters, and the flowers will spring up on its banks: thus, though still preserving the most tender recollection of the parent whom she had lost, Giulietta's spirits gradually recovered their tone, and some very happy hours were spent in the convent.

A year in youth is like a month in spring; it is wonderful what an alteration it makes; the germ expands into a leaf, and the bud into a flower, almost before we have marked the change. On the cardinal's return from Rome, where he had made a long sojourn, he was surprised to perceive how the three Aldobrandini had sprung up into graceful womanhood. Constanza, the eldest, was nineteen, and Giulietta seventeen; but the sisters had never been parted, and he resolved that they should together take up their residence in his palace.

It was early in a spring evening when the Aldobrandini arrived at their uncle's dwelling. It was an old and heavy-looking building. Constanza and Bianca, as the massy gate swung behind them, on their arrival in the dark, arched court, simply remarked that they were afraid it would be very dull: but Giulietta's imagination was powerfully impressed; a vague terror filled her mind, which the gloom of the huge and still chambers through which they were ushered did not tend to decrease. At length, they paused in a large vaulted room, while the aged domestic went on, to announce them to the cardinal. Giulietta glanced around; the purple hangings were nearly black with age, so was the furniture, while the narrow windows admitted shadows rather than light. Some portraits hung on the walls, all dignitaries of the church; but the colour of their scarlet robes had faded with time, and each wan and harsh face seemed to turn frowning on the youthful strangers. A door opened, and they were ushered into the presence of their uncle. He was standing by a table, on which was a crucifix and an open breviary, while a volume of the life of St. Chrysostom lay open on the floor. A window of stained glass was half screened by a heavy curtain, and the dark panels of carved oak added to the gloom of the oratory. The sisters knelt before him, while gravely and calmly he pronounced over them a welcome and a blessing. Constanza and Bianca received them gracefully and meekly, but Giulietta's heart was too full; she thought how different would have been the meeting had they been but kneeling before parents instead of the stern prelate. She bowed her head upon the breviary; and her dark hair fell over her face while she gave way to a passionate burst of tears. Next to indulging in the outward expression of feeling himself, the cardinal held it wrong to encourage it in another. Gently, but coldly, he raised the weeping Giulietta; and, with kind but measured assurances of his regard and protection, he dismissed the sisters to their apartments. Could Giulietta have known the many anxious thoughts that followed her, how little would she have doubted her uncle's affection!