Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/108



"Alas! we make A ladder of our thoughts where angels step, But sleep ourselves at the foot!" L. E. L.

" so you visited the old palazzo," said Francesca, as, leaving for a while the sick man to the sole care of Katerina, they sat down beside the hearth in the adjoining room, over which the embers of the wood-fire cast a fluctuating light; now the long shadows falling duskily around—now dispersing them with bursts of brilliant flame, as the lighter wood kindled into a short-lived blaze.

"So changed, so dreary!" replied Guido. "Do you remember our favourite windows?—yours the thick myrtle has completely filled—part of its branches creep mournfully along the discoloured wall. Mine has been broken in and shattered; and the floor is covered with earth driven in by the pelting rains, and with fragments of marble, strewed with dried leaves. The floor has its mosaic overgrown with moss and weeds; and