She saw before her a man of mild aspect and princely form. Peschiera
(for it was he) had banished from his dress, as from his countenance, all
that betrayed the worldly levity of his character. He was acting a part,
and he dressed and looked it.

"My father!" she said, quickly, and in Italian. "What of him? And who
are you, signor? I know you not." Peschiera smiled benignly, and
replied in a tone in which great respect was softened by a kind of
parental tenderness,--"Suffer me to explain, and listen to me while I
speak." Then, quietly seating himself on the bench beside her, he looked
into her eyes, and resumed,--

"Doubtless you have heard of the Count di Peschiera?"

VIOLANTE.--"I heard that name, as a child, when in Italy. And when she
with whom I then dwelt (my father's aunt) fell ill and died, I was told
that my home in Italy was gone, that it had passed to the Count di
Peschiera,--my father's foe!"

PESCHTERA.--"And your father, since then, has taught you to hate this
fancied foe?"

VIOLANTE.--"Nay, my father did but forbid me ever to breathe his name."

PESCHIERA.--"Alas! what years of suffering and exile might have been
saved your father, had he but been more just to his early friend and
kinsman,--nay, had he but less cruelly concealed the secret of his
retreat. Fair child, I am that Giulio Franzini, that Count di Peschiera.
I am the man you have been told to regard as your father's foe. I am the
man on whom the Austrian Emperor bestowed his lands. And now judge if I