A more brilliant blending of bright eyes and gentle accents-of softness and gaiety-of beauty and blandishment, heart could not imagine. Her features were like her father's-"but softened into beauty." It was the mild expression of her eyes that subdued her hereditary hauteur of aspect. They were darkly, deeply blue, for her mother was one of the Colonna family, and the daughters of that ancient line have usually been distinguished by the rare, but not unpleasing contrast of dark. hair, blue eyes, and a complexion delicately, almost dazzlingly, fair.

Amicia di Orsino was exactly of the middle stature, and slightly formed. The long dark lashes which shaded her eyes reposed upon a cheek"carnationed like an infant's." It was

a natural mistake to think that those expressive and unfathomable eyes were black, but in their beauty was the deepest and darkest azure of the sky, whose richest hue they resembled; it had been fancifully, but truthfully said of them, that they seemed dark in the

light, and bright in the shadow. Small white hands-tiny feet, beneath whose airy tread the flowers would be rather disturbed than crushed -graceful and gliding motions; in short, to complete the sketch, there needs but Donne's delicate description of his mistress

Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheek, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say-her body thought!

It might be deemed that mirth was the characteristic of her mind-for she scattered smiles around her like sunshine-were it not that, at times, meditation, subdued almost to mournfulness, would usurp the ascendancy, until, at length, the overcharged heart would be relieved by tears. If a poet had seen her thus, he might say that, at such moments, her eyes were like violets upon which the Maydew yet lingered and glistened. The few shadows which had crossed her were only summer clouds, for grief was to her rather a thought than a reality; and beholding that beautiful face, into which the pure and gentle

mind had visibly breathed itself, the heart would be impelled to pray almost involuntarily, that sorrow might never shade it.

In the countenance of Beatrice there was less of beauty, but more of mind. It was probable that, until she was known and appreciated, the eye, dazzled by the superior loveliness of the cousin, might either not notice her, or fancy that she was even almost plain. But, when she was known, the marvel would be how such features, soul illumined, could ever have been deemed other than beautiful. The dark eyes flashed with intelligence, the pale cheek glowed with enthusiasm, the brow looked the very throne of thought, the clear, earnest voice breathed forth its welcome words in all the sweetness of music-and then the maiden might be truly said to "walk in light of her own making." For, after all, it is the mind that best displays the beauty, even as the sunshine brings out the full loveliness of the landscape! It was for Amicia to conquer with a glance for Beatrice to steal gradually

into the heart. Amicia might lose a votary, but whom her cousin once won would ever be a captive; for some maids, as the poet sings, weave nets while others make cages.

Early in the sixteenth century, where a sovereign was sometimes unable to accomplish any greater feat in letters than that of making his sign manual, the education of females was much neglected; nor, indeed, up to this hour, has Italy paid sufficient attention to the duty and necessity of cultivating the intellects of her daughters. Count Petigliano well knew the value of letters, although his troubled career had given him little leisure to cultivate them much, and gladly availed himself of the means which accident placed in his way for the instruction of his daughter and his niece. An Armenian caloyer, driven from his own land by persecution, had found a home, after many wanderings, at Vicenza, where Count Petigliano had resided some years previous to the date of this narrative. He became known to the Count, who, assured of his great attain

ments, did not hesitate to intrust to the old man the education of the two whom he loved as dearly as he loved fame. If they were fortunate in such an instructor, the Armenian was not less so in the intellect of his pupils. He made them fully acquainted with the lore of their own sweet language, and opened to them much of the treasures which had descended from the poets and historians of the olden times. Amicia loved to amuse herself with the sweet lays of Petrarca, and the varied fancies of Boccaccio, (for the Decameron had not then been banned by that fastidious prudery which has more care for the seeming than the reality of things), rather than with the graver works which had greater attractions for her cousin. The surveillance of the Armenian ceased only with his life, which terminated a short time before the Count, summoned by the Seigniory to reside in Venice, withdrew his daughter and niece from the convent in which they had dwelt, almost since infancy had seen both of them motherless.