She was then about eighteen or nineteen, and the very ideal of what an English girl at that age should be. On a mind highly stored and amply cultivated, no unworthy or depreciating influence had yet descended; freedom of thought, freshness almost childish, had given her an animation and buoyancy only subdued by the chastening modesty of coming womanhood. Enthusiastic in all her pursuits, for they were graceful and elevating, her mind had all the simplicity of the child with the refinement of the highest culture; and, like those who are brought up in narrow circles, her affections for a few spread themselves out in the varied forms that are often scattered and diffused over the wider surface of the world. Thus her brother was not merely the great object of her affection and pride, but he was the companion of her rides and walks, the confidant of all her secret feelings, the store in which she laid up her newly acquired knowledge, or drew, at will, for more. With him she read and studied; delighted by the same pursuits, their natures blended into one harmonious corde, which no variance or dissonance ever troubled.
His death, although long and gradually anticipated, nearly brought her to the grave. The terrible nature of the malady, so often inherent in the same family, gave cause for the most anxious fears on her account, and her mother, herself almost brokenhearted, took her abroad, hoping by the mildness of a southern climate and change of scene to arrest the progress of the fell disease.
In this she was successful; bodily health was indeed secured. But might it not have been better that she had wasted slowly away, to sleep at last beneath the yews of her own ancient churchyard, than live and become what she has done?
Some years after this event I was, although at the time only an attaché of the mission, acting as Charge d’affaires at Naples, during the absence of the minister and the secretary. I was sitting one morning reading in my garden, when my servant announced the visit of an Italian gentleman, il Signor Salvatori. The name was familiar to me, as belonging to a man who had long been employed as a Spy of the Austrian government, and, indeed, was formerly entrusted in a secret capacity by Lord W. Bentinck in Sicily—a clever, designing, daring rascal, who obtained his information no one knew how; and although we had always our suspicions that he might be “selling” us, as well as the French, we never actually traced any distinct act of treachery to his door. He possessed a considerable skill in languages, was very highly informed on many popular topics, and, I have been told, was a musician of no mean powers of performance. These and similar social qualities were, however, never displayed by him in any part of his intercourse with us, although we had often heard of their existence.
As I never felt any peculiar pleasure in the relations which office compels with men of his stamp, I received him somewhat coldly, and asked, without much circumlocution, the reason of his visit.
He replied, with his habitual smile of self-possession, that his present duty at “the Mission” was not a business-call, but concerned a matter purely personal;—in fact, “with his Excellency’s permission, he desired to get married.”
Not stopping him on the score of his investing me with a title to which, no one knew better than himself, I had no pretensions, I quietly assured him that his relation with “the Mission” did not, in any way, necessitate his asking for such a permission—that, however secret and mysterious the nature of his communications, they were still beyond the pale of affairs personally private.
He suffered me to continue my explanation, somewhat scornful as it was, to the end, and then calmly said,—
“Your Excellency will pardon my intrusion, when I inform you that the marriage should take place here, at ‘the Mission,’ as the lady is an English woman.”
Whether it was the fact itself, or his manner of delivering it, that outraged me, I cannot now remember; but I do recollect giving expression to a sentiment of surprise and anger not exactly suitable.