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126 pursuits after knowledge. I found the small legacy of the late Lord Avonleigh amply sufficient for my support; and my mornings in the classes, my nights in solitary studies, passed as the happiest—the only happy part of my existence.

"This course of life led to my acquaintance with your grandfather, then among the most celebrated of Padua's learned doctors. I soon found that he was given to abstruser science than he taught in the schools. The belief that there are subtle mysteries in nature as yet unravelled, but accessible to patient hope and toil, suited well with my temper. Hitherto all that I had acquired had been unsatisfactory—the reward was too distant; but Carrara's mystic eloquence brought the result of our midnight vigils visibly before me; and when I left him, it was to dream of the glorious secrets which, once penetrated, would lay all nature open to our eyes, and leave all its ministering spirits bowed to our rule by spell and sign. But these dreams were haunted by a sweeter and a lovelier vision. Carrara had a daughter; and how would my look wander from the scrolls spread out before us to the fair face, half hidden by the long hair that reached the embroidering frame over which she was wont to bend!

"Francesca, you are beautiful; but, oh! not