At the close of his investigations, the poor little flower, the last upon the tree, examined petal by petal, and to the very depth of her calyx, suddenly fell off one day into the hand of the operator, bearing with it Charney’s hopes of inquiry into the progress of the seed, the reproduction of his favourite, the maternity of the lovely Picciola!
“She shall have no other title than Picciola!” cried Charney. “Picciola, the flower of the captive. What do I want to know more of her name or nature? To what purpose this idle thirst after human knowledge?”
In a moment of petulance, Charney even threw down the vast heap of folios which had served to perplex him; when, from one of the volumes, came fluttering forth a slip of paper, on which had been recently inscribed, in the handwriting of a woman, the following verse, purporting to be a quotation from the Holy Scriptures:
“Hope, and bid thy neighbour hope: for, behold, I have not forsaken ye, and a day of consolation is at hand.”
CHAPTER III.
Charney perused and re-perused a hundred times a sentence which he could not but believe to have been especially addressed to himself. His correspondent was evidently a woman; but it grieved him to reflect that the only one to whom he was indebted for real acts of service, the only woman who had ever devoted herself to his cause, was still so imperfectly known to him, that he was ignorant of the very sound of her voice, and by no means sure of recognising her person, should she present herself before him.
But by what means had Teresa contrived to evade the vigilance of his Argus in the transmission of her letter?
Poor girl! Afraid to compromise her father by the mere mention of his name! Unhappy father! to whom he is unable to afford consolation by the sight of the handwriting of his child!