But as it was known that the Princess Pezzilini, still a young and beautiful woman, could not continue as the guest of two gentlemen in a house where there was no other lady, she was immediately overwhelmed with invitations. All the country gentry contended for the honor of the company of an exiled princess. But the beautiful Italian decided to accept for the present the hospitality of the veteran hero, Admiral Sir Ira Brunton.
And the same evening, attended by Miss Tabs, whom she had taken into her service, the princess accompanied the gallant admiral to his elegant retreat, the Anchorage.
CHAPTER XI.
THE YOUNG WANDERER.
“Either they fear their fate too much,
Or their desert is small,
Who put it not unto the touch,
And lose or win it all.”
The interests of our history require that we take up the fortunes of the captain’s orphan daughter from the moment that she was left alone on the evening preceding her flight.
Poor Annella had not been brought up as other young girls, and therefore should not be judged by the same standard.
The only and motherless child of a dissipated officer in a marching regiment, nearly the whole of her neglected childhood had been passed in the camp, in the barracks, and in perpetual change of place.