"Ah! you regret—nay, I am foolish—you return to your native land. But the skies in Italy are so blue—here it seems as if nature wanted colours."
"Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England."
"He! Impossible!"
"Why impossible, fair sceptic?" cried Harley, interrupting himself in the midst of a speech to Jemima.
Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard—she was speaking low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly—
"Because in England there is the noblest career for noble minds."
Harley was startled, and replied with a slight sigh, "At your age I should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with noble minds, that they only jostle each other, and the career is one cloud of dust."
"So, I have read, seems a battle to the common soldier, but not to the chief."
"You have read good descriptions of battles, I see."
Mrs Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon her daughter-in-law's studies, hastened to Violante's relief.