Flodoardo was become melancholy, and that Rosabella was indisposed,
but I did not tell them what had occasioned this sudden change.

Flodoardo, who on his first arrival at Venice was all gaiety, and
the life of every society in which he mingled, lost his spirits on
one particular day; and it so happened that it was on the very same
day that Rosabella betrayed the first symptoms of indisposition.

For on this unlucky day did the caprice of accident, or perhaps the
Goddess of Love (who has her caprices too every now and then),
conduct Rosabella into her uncle's garden, which none but the Doge's
intimate friends were permitted to enter; and where the Doge himself
frequently reposed in solitude and silence during the evening hours
of a sultry day.

Rosabella, lost in thought, wandered listless and unconscious along
the broad and shady alleys of the garden. Sometimes, in a moment of
vexation, she plucked the unoffending leaves from the hedges and
strewed them upon the ground; sometimes she stopped suddenly, then
rushed forward with impetuosity, then again stood still, and gazed
upon the clear blue heaven. Sometimes her beautiful bosom was
heaved with quick and irregular motion, and sometimes a half-
suppressed sigh escaped from her lips of coral.

"He is very handsome!" she murmured, and gazed with such eagerness
on vacancy, as though she had there seen something which was hidden
from the sight of common observers.

"Yet Camilla is in the right," she resumed, after a pause, and she
frowned as had she said that Camilla was in the wrong.