"Yes."

"Perhaps you came with him from Italy?"

"No, not exactly; but I have been in Italy for some years."

"Ah! you regret--nay, I am foolish--you return to your native land. But
the skies in Italy are so blue,--here it seems as if Nature wanted
colours."

"Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you
remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England."

"He! Impossible!"

"Why impossible, fair sceptic?" cried Harley, interrupting himself in the
midst of a speech to Jemima.

Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard--she was speaking
low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly,

"Because in England there is the noblest career for noble minds."

Harley was startled, and replied, with a slight sigh, "At your age I
should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with
noble minds that they only jostle each other, and the career is one cloud
of dust."

"So, I have read, seems a battle to a common soldier, but not to the
chief."