The tone of the last words was mournful, and the words ended with a sigh.

VIOLANTE (with enthusiasm).--"How I envy you that past which you treat so
lightly! To have been something, even in childhood, to the formation of
a noble nature; to have borne on those slight shoulders half the load of
a man's grand labour; and now to see Genius moving calm in its clear
career; and to say inly, 'Of that genius I am a part!'"

HELEN (sadly and humbly).--"A part! Oh, no! A part? I don't understand
you."

VIOLANTE.--"Take the child Beatrice from Dante's life, and should we have
a Dante? What is a poet's genius but the voice of its emotions? All
things in life and in Nature influence genius; but what influences it the
most are its own sorrows and affections."

Helen looks softly into Violante's eloquent face, and draws nearer to her
in tender silence.

VIOLANTE (suddenly).--"Yes, Helen, yes,--I know by my own heart how to
read yours. Such memories are ineffaceable. Few guess what strange
self-weavers of our own destinies we women are in our veriest childhood!"
She sunk her voice into a whisper: "How could Leonard fail to be dear to
you,--dear as you to him,--dearer than all others?"

HELEN (shrinking back, and greatly disturbed).--"Hush, hush! you must
not speak to me thus; it is wicked,--I cannot bear it. I would not have
it be so; it must not be,--it cannot!"