We passed the remainder of the summer at Passy, near Paris, where Rossini has a beautiful villa, and where, others of our friends were also residing. Expecting shortly the arrival of Balzano, we had thought it inexpedient to journey further. But weeks were added to days, and months to weeks, and yet no letter came. “He will doubtless come without writing,” we said, and so saying, daily looked we for his advent. Our frequent talk now was of beloved Italy, and of the happy days we had passed beneath the placid azure of its heavens.
“Ah! me,” sighed my friend, “how rarely do we value the present till it has faded into the past! We spend our lives in wild hopes of the future—in sad regrets for by-gone days. Folly—to the present with its pleasures and pains may we alone lay claim as our own. Do you remember, Mary, the fairy-like fête given by the Conte de Syracuse, in that exquisitely lovely mountain glade at Castellamare, so shadowy with graceful trees, through whose branches here and there, a bright glint of sunshine gilded the rocks, dancing over the feathery fern, and causing the rivulet to sparkle with a clearer crystal? how sapphire blue lay the Mediterranean, viewed through the interstices of the varied foliage. It was truly a scene of enchantment, and reminded me of those days chronicled by Boccaccio when six gallant cavaliers with their noble dames retired together to the fair gardens of Sans Souci that they might avoid the infection of the pestilence then desolating the doomed city of Florence.”
“Yes,” said I, “and how picturesque the table prepared as it were, by the genii of the forest; how brilliant the dresses of the ladies, and though last, not least, how cool and refreshing the well iced champagne! And, after the collation, how charmingly wild our dance on the greensward to the stirring music of the invisible orchestra deeply hidden in the woods.”
“And the Prince, too, how wickedly and maliciously he insisted on the stout old Baroness de R—— being his partner in the polka, till she looked actually purple, so that we feared every minute her desire to oblige H. R. H. would cause her to faint with fatigue. Oh! Mary, those were merry days! The silver moon arose to look upon our sport, and the fire-flies came and danced with us.”
“And you remember the pretty compliment the Prince paid you, Evelyn, about the pearls? You had your hair braided, and bonnet trimmed with these ornaments—bracelets and necklace to match. His Royal Highness said ‘Pearls in the hair, on the neck, and the rounded white arms, but the finest pearls of all are within the rosy lips.’”
“Ah! Mary, remind me not of my days of vanity and folly. Have I not sufficiently suffered for my poor triumphs? Had I been less handsome I might have been a better and a happier woman.”
“You may yet be both, dearest, it is not too late.”
Thus time passed, and we returned to Paris, no reply having as yet arrived from Naples, so we began to think that, (as is frequently the case there), Evelyn’s letter might have miscarried. She was just preparing to write again, when one morning Ella entered, frantic with delight.
“A letter! a letter!” she exclaimed, “from dear Italy. What will mama give for it? a kiss—no, two, at least three—there,” and Evelyn took it, and broke the seal. It was in di Balzano’s fine Italian hand, and as follows:
Naples, Nov. —, 18—.