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Rh been with Francesca, whose life had passed in a small and affectionate circle, with all the fresh warm feelings of youth about it? where there might have been angry words to the face, but to the face only. While from their lovely climate, the poets native to their sweet south, the old ruins hallowed with the memories of other days, the lovely paintings, the still diviner statues, which had been their constant companions—the character had imperceptibly caught a tone of romance, calculated long to resist the inroads of worldliness and deceit.

On Marie Mancini the effect had been but slight. There was an innate little selfishness in her, which defied the finer influences. In Madame de Mercœur they were naturalised by a total deficiency of imagination. She was kind, good, and even penetrating, when enlightened by the affections; but head is required for the very highest qualities of the heart, and those were beyond Madame de Mercœur.

In Guido the imagination had taken one peculiar bent, and given one peculiar talent. In Francesca it was more generally diffused; it gave something of poetry—her feeling of beauty was more keen, her reverence for the good more exalted, and her perception of the generous more