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226 read it far too carefully. "How differently I should have written to him! and yet, poor Guido, I fear he is unwell—hurried evidently, and he will have the more to say when we meet;" and once more she read the paragraph mentioning his speedy return.

Francesca's was a grievance of which most of her sex have to complain; a man's letter is always the most unsatisfactory thing in the world. There are none of those minute details which are such a solace to feminine anxiety; the mere fact of writing always seems sufficient to content a masculine conscience. Guido, therefore, was guilty of no uncommon failing; and could Francesca have looked into the heart whose emotions were so ill depicted on that brief scroll, she would have seen how tender was the affection which clung to her image, as the only object beloved—the one light of a dreaming and melancholy existence. But for her sake, he would not have returned to France; for his absence had made his own country seem lovelier than ever. His earlier visions returned upon him; his despondency, which, amid realities, had become embittered by mortifications, here took the tone of poetry, and but shewed itself in the deeper sense with which he lingered beside the ruined temple, or gathered the wild