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110 forward to the creation of grace and beauty, and believed in the immortality I was myself to create. Alas! I feel unequal to the struggle. Happy are those who to the hope add the power! I am but one of the many who see the distant goal, but who sink at the commencement of the race."

"The gloom of those failing embers," exclaimed Francesca, "Has infected us both!" and, rising from the low settle, she lighted the lamp, and flung some smaller wood on the hearth, and a cheerful blaze kindled at once.

"How can we," said she, drawing her seat close to Guido, and laying her hand tenderly on his arm, "disbelieve in affection while we remain to each other? Once let us leave this dreary city behind, and find a home in some lonely and pleasant place, and we shall have our old content come back. I shall have enough to do in keeping—even our little household in order; and you—why, the first graceful peasant that passes, half hidden in the foliage, will conjure up in your mind a world of dryades and light-footed nymphs. Ah! of late we have been too idle."