Chapter 14

"Then methought,
A serenade broke silence, breathing hope
Through walls of stone."
ITALY.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the melody of music was rife
on the water. Gondolas continued to glide along the shadowed canals,
while the laugh or the song was echoed among the arches of the palaces.
The piazza and piazzetta were yet brilliant with lights, and gay with
their multitudes of unwearied revellers.

The habitation of Donna Violetta was far from the scene of general
amusement. Though so remote, the hum of the moving throng, and the
higher strains of the wind-instruments, came, from time to time, to the
ears of its inmates, mellowed and thrilling by distance.

The position of the moon cast the whole of the narrow passage which
flowed beneath the windows of her private apartments into shadow. In a
balcony which overhung the water, stood the youthful and ardent girl,
listening with a charmed ear and a tearful eye to one of those soft
strains, in which Venetian voices answered to each other from different
points on the canals, in the songs of the gondoliers. Her constant
companion and Mentor was near, while the ghostly father of them both
stood deeper in the room.

"There may be pleasanter towns on the main, and capitals of more
revelry," said the charmed Violetta, withdrawing her person from its
leaning attitude, as the voices ceased; "but in such a night and at this
witching hour, what city may compare with Venice?"

"Providence has been less partial in the distribution of its earthly
favors than is apparent to a vulgar eye," returned the attentive
Carmelite. "If we have our peculiar enjoyments and our moments of divine
contemplation, other towns have advantages of their own; Genoa and Pisa,
Firenze, Ancona, Roma, Palermo, and, chiefest of all, Napoli--"

"Napoli, father!"

"Daughter, Napoli. Of all the towns of sunny Italy, 'tis the fairest and
the most blessed in natural gifts. Of every region I have visited,
during a life of wandering and penitence, that is the country on which
the touch of the Creator hath been the most God-like!"

"Thou art imaginative to-night, good Father Anselmo. The land must be
fair indeed, that can thus warm the fancy of a Carmelite."

"The rebuke is just. I have spoken more under the influence of
recollections that came from days of idleness and levity, than with the
chastened spirit of one who should see the hand of the Maker in the most
simple and least lovely of all his wondrous works."

"You reproach yourself causelessly, holy father," observed the mild
Donna Florinda, raising her eyes towards the pale countenance of