daughter of the Count de Bernini. Of the misfortunes of your family, I
believe you are yet ignorant. The chief estates of the count were
situated in the _Val di Demona_, a valley deriving its name from its
vicinity to Mount AEtna, which vulgar tradition has peopled with
devils. In one of those dreadful eruptions of AEtna, which deluged
this valley with a flood of fire, a great part of your grandfather's
domains in that quarter were laid waste. The count was at that time
with a part of his family at Messina, but the countess and her son,
who were in the country, were destroyed. The remaining property of the
count was proportionably inconsiderable, and the loss of his wife and
son deeply affected him. He retired with Louisa, his only surviving
child, who was then near fifteen, to a small estate near Cattania.
There was some degree of relationship between your grandfather and
myself; and your mother was attached to me by the ties of sentiment,
which, as we grew up, united us still more strongly than those of
blood. Our pleasures and our tastes were the same; and a similarity of
misfortunes might, perhaps, contribute to cement our early friendship.
I, like herself, had lost a parent in the eruption of AEtna. My mother
had died before I understood her value; but my father, whom I revered
and tenderly loved, was destroyed by one of those terrible events; his
lands were buried beneath the lava, and he left an only son and myself
to mourn his fate, and encounter the evils of poverty. The count, who
was our nearest surviving relation, generously took us home to his
house, and declared that he considered us as his children. To amuse
his leisure hours, he undertook to finish the education of my brother,
who was then about seventeen, and whose rising genius promised to
reward the labours of the count. Louisa and myself often shared the
instruction of her father, and at those hours Orlando was generally of
the party. The tranquil retirement of the count's situation, the
rational employment of his time between his own studies, the education