the most valuable parts of ancient and modern literature, remained
for whole days together in his own apartment, and was seldom to be
seen in public except upon some great solemnity.

But the Doge, Lomellino, Manfrone, and Conari, men who had
established the fame of Venice on so firm a basis that it would
require centuries to undermine it; men in whose society one seemed
to be withdrawn from the circle of ordinary mortals, and honoured by
the intercourse of superior beings, men who now graciously received
the Florentine stranger into their intimacy, and resolved to spare
no pains in forming him to support the character of a great man; it
could not long escape the observation of men like these, that
Flodoardo's gaiety was assumed, and that a secret sorrow preyed upon
his heart.

In vain did Lomellino, who loved him like a father, endeavour to
discover the source of his melancholy; in vain did the venerable
Doge exert himself to dispel the gloom which oppressed his young
favourite. Flodoardo remained silent and sad.

And Rosabella? Rosabella would have belied her sex had she remained
gay while Flodoardo sorrowed. Her spirits were flown, her eyes were
frequently obscured with tears. She grew daily paler and paler,
till the Doge, who doted on her, was seriously alarmed for her
health. At length Rosabella grew really ill; a fever fixed itself
upon her; she became weak, and was confined to her chamber, and her
complaint baffled the skill of the most experienced physicians in
Venice.

In the midst of these unpleasant circumstances in which Andreas and