"Are you sure that it has died out everywhere?" asked Isabella.
"Certainly not," said Otho Blanchard; "my mother, Bianca Bianco, inherits her name from a long line of ancestry, and with it come its hatreds as well as its loves."
"You speak like an Italian or Spaniard," said Lawrence. "We are cold-blooded Yankees, and in our slow veins such passions do die out. I should have taken you for an American from your name."
"It is our name Americanized; we have made Americans of ourselves, and the Bianchi have become the Blanchards."
"The romance of the family, then," persisted Lawrence, "must needs become Americanized too. If you were to meet with a lovely young lady of the enemy's race, I think you would be willing to bury your sword in the sheath for her sake."
"I hope I should not forget the honor of my family," said Otho. "I certainly never could, as long as my mother lives; her feelings on the subject are stronger even than mine."
"I cannot imagine the possibility of such feelings dying out," said Isabella. "I cannot imagine such different elements amalgamating. It would be like fire and water uniting. Then there would be no longer any contest; the game of life would be over."
"Why will you make out life to be a battle always?" exclaimed Lawrence; "won't you allow us any peace? I do not find such contests all the time,—never, except when I am fighting with you."
"I had rather fight with you than against you," said Isabella, laughing.
"But when one is not striving, one is sleeping."
"That reminds me that it is time for our siesta," said Lawrence; "so we need not fight any longer."