The opera, too, was a new delight to Isabella, and even Celia was excited by it.
"It is a little too absurd, to see the dying scene of Romeo and Juliet sung out in an opera!" remarked Lawrence Egerton, one morning; "all the music of the spheres could not have made that scene, last night, otherwise than supremely ridiculous."
"I am glad you did not sit by us, then," replied Celia; "Isabella and I were crying."
"I dare say," said Lawrence. "I should be afraid to take you to see a tragedy well acted. You would both be in hysterics before the killing was over."
"I should be really afraid," said Celia, "to see Romeo and Juliet finely performed. It would be too sad."
"It would be much better to end it up comfortably," said Lawrence. "Why should not Juliet marry her Romeo in peace?"
"It would be impossible!" exclaimed Isabella,—"impossible to bring together two such hostile families! Of course the result must be a tragedy."
"In romances," answered Lawrence, "that may be necessary; but not in real life."
"Why not in real life?" asked Isabella. "When two thunder-clouds meet, there must be an explosion."
"But we don't have such hostile families arrayed against each other now-a-days," said Lawrence. "The Bianchi and the Neri have died out; unless the feud lives between the whites and the blacks of the present day."