could never enjoy, peacefully, any happiness which caused sorrow to
her parents.

With Bartolomeo, as with his daughter, the hesitations of this period
caused by the native goodness of their souls were, nevertheless,
compelled to give way before their pride and the rancor of their
Corsican nature. They encouraged each other in their anger, and closed
their eyes to the future. Perhaps they mutually flattered themselves
that the one would yield to the other.

At last, on Ginevra's birthday, her mother, in despair at the
estrangement which, day by day, assumed a more serious character,
meditated an attempt to reconcile the father and daughter, by help of
the memories of this family anniversary. They were all three sitting
in Bartolomeo's study. Ginevra guessed her mother's intention by the
timid hesitation on her face, and she smiled sadly.

At this moment a servant announced two notaries, accompanied by
witnesses. Bartolomeo looked fixedly at these persons, whose cold and
formal faces were grating to souls so passionately strained as those
of the three chief actors in this scene. The old man turned to his
daughter and looked at her uneasily. He saw upon her face a smile of
triumph which made him expect some shock; but, after the manner of
savages, he affected to maintain a deceitful indifference as he gazed
at the notaries with an assumed air of calm curiosity. The strangers
sat down, after being invited to do so by a gesture of the old man.

"Monsieur is, no doubt, M. le Baron di Piombo?" began the oldest of
the notaries.