Catalani's consent, the latter frowned on the scheme, for the golden
harvest was too rich to be yielded up lightly for the asking. He coldly
refused, and bade the suitor think of his love as hopeless, though
he found no objection to M. Vallebrègue personally. Poor Angelica
was thoroughly wretched, and day after day pined for her young
soldier-lover, who had been forbidden the house by the father. For
several days she was in such dejection that she could not sing, and
the romance became the talk of Lisbon. One day an anonymous letter
was received by Papa Catalani charging M. Vallebrègue with being a
proscribed man, who had committed some mysterious crime vaguely hinted
at. Armed with this, her father sought to reason Angelica out of
her passion; but she clung to her lover with more eagerness, and was
rewarded, to her great joy, by learning that the crime was only having
fought a duel with and severely wounded his superior officer--an offense
against discipline, which had been punished by temporary relief from
military duty and a pleasant exile to Lisbon. The young beauty
wept, sighed, pouted, and could be persuaded to sing only with much
difficulty. All day long she said with deep mournfulness, "_Ma che bel
uffiziale_" and pined with genuine heart-sickness. At last Vallebrègue
smuggled a letter to his discouraged mistress, in which he said in
ardent words that no one had a right to separate them, and urged her
to lend all her energies to her professional work, so that, being a
favorite at court, she might induce the Prince to intercede in the
matter. Angelica tried in vain to get an interview with the Prince, and
found that he was at his country villa twenty miles away. Her accustomed
energy was equal to the difficult. Calling a coach, she drove out to the
royal villa. Trembling with emotion and fatigue, she threw herself at
the feet of the good-natured Prince, whom she found in the garden, and
told her story as soon as her timidity could find words. He could hardly
resist the temptation to badinage which the lively Angelica had hitherto