Year: 1866

the singular lightness and brightness O


the climate, made, altogether, such com


bnaton OF wonders that we wander abou


the first day, in kind of bewidered dream


like children at fair. Before that week
was ended, being tempted by the beauty O
the place and the liberality of the pay, W.
had agreed to take service with the Turin
and Genoa Railway Company, and to turr
our backs upon Birmingham forever.
Then began new life,-a life so active


and healthy, so STEPPED in fresh air and
sunshine, that we sometimes marvelled how
we could have endured the gloom of the
Black Country. We were constantly ur
AM down the line now at Genoa, now at
Turin, taking trial trips with the locomo.
tives, and placing our old experiences at


the service of our new employers


In Che mean while we made Genoa our


headquarters, and hired couple of rooms


over small shop in a by.street sloping
down to the quays. Such busy little
street,-so steep and winding that no We


hicles could pass through it, and so narrow
that the sky looked like a mere strip of
deep-blue ribbon overhead Every house
IN It, however, was shop, where the goods
tncroached on the footway, or were piled
about the door, or hung like tapestry from
the balconies and all day long, from dawn
to dusk, an incessant stream of passers-by
poured up and down between the port and
the upper quarter of the city.


Our landlady was the widow of a silver
worker, and lived by the sale of filigree or
naments, cheap jewelry, combs, fans, and
toys in ivory and jet. She had an only
daughter named Gianetta, who served in
the shop, and was simply the most beauti-
ful woman | ever beheld. Looking back
across this weary chasm Of years, and
bringing her image before me (as | can do
with all the vividness of life, l am unable,
even now, to detect flaw in her beauty
| do not attempt to describe her. do not
believe there is a poet living who could find
the words to do it but | once saw pic
ture that was somewhat like her (not half
so lovely, but still like her), and, for aught
| know, that picture is still hanging where
last looked at it,-upon the walls of the
Louvre. 1t represented a woman with
brown eyes and golden hair, looking over
her shoulder into a circular mirror held by
| q bearded man in the background. In this
man, as | then understood, the artist had
painted his own portrait in her, the por-
trait of the woman he loved. No picture
that ever saw was half so beautiful, and
yet it was not worthy to be named in the
same breath with Gianetta Coneglia.
You may be certain the widows shop did
not want for customers. All Genoa knew
how fair face was to be seen behind that
dingy little counter and Giannetta, firt as
she was, had more lovers than she cared to
remember, even by name Gentle and sim
pie, rich and poor from the red-capped sail
or buying his earrings or his amulet, to the
nobleman carelessly purchasing half the
filigrees in the window, she treated them
them led them on and turned them off at
her pleasure. She had no more heart than
a marble statue, as Mat and l discovered
by and by, to our bitter cost


cannot tell to this day how it came
about, or what first led me to suspect how
| things were going with us both but long
before the waning Of that autumn a cold
ness had sprung up between my friend and
myself. 1t was nothing that could have
beer put into words. 1t was nothing that
either of us could have explained or justi-
fed, to save his life. We lodged together,
ate together, worked together, exactly as
before ; we even took our long evenings
walk together, when the days labor was
ended and except, perhaps, that we were
more silent than Of old, no mere looker-on
could have detected shadow of change
Yet there it was, silent and subtle, widen
ing the gulf between us every day.


1t was not his fault. He was too true
and gentle-hearted to have willingly bro't
about such a state of things between u.s.
Neither do | believe-fery as my nature is
that it was mine. Itwas all hers--hers
from first to last-the sin, and the shame,
and the sorrow.


If she had shown fair and open prefer
ence for either of us, no real harm could
have come oft. / would have put any con-
straint upon myself, and, Heaven knows !!
have borne any suffering, to see Mat really
happy. | know that he would have done
the same, and more if he could, for me.
But Gianetta cared not one sou for either.
She never meant to choose between us. 1t
gratiied her vanity to divide us; it amused
her to play with us. 1t would pass my pow
er to tell how, by thousand imperceptible
shades of coquetry,--by the lingering of
glance, the substitution of a word, the fit
ting of a smle,-she contrived to turn our
heads, and torture our hearts, and lead US





buoyed us both up with hope she madden
ed US with jealousy; she crushed US with
despair. For my part, when | seemed to
wake to sudden sense of the ruin that
was about our path, and l saw how the
truest friendship that ever bound two lives
together was drifting on to wreck and ruin,
| asked myself whether any woman in the
world was worth what Nat had been to me
and to him. But this was not often.
was reader to shut my eyes upon the truth
than to face it and so lived on, wilfully,
in a dream.


Thus the autumn passed away, and win
ter came,-the strange, treacherous Geno-
ese winter, green with olive and lex, bril-
liant with sunshine, and bitter with storm
| Still, rivals at heart and friends on the sur
face, Mat and fingered on in our lodging
in the Vicolo Balba Still Gianetta held US
with her fatal wiles and her still more fatal
beauty At length there came day when
! felt | could bear the horrible misery and
suspense Of it no longer. The sun, VOW
! ed should not go down before | knew nv