Page:Francesca Carrara 2.pdf/186

Rh, yet confined, the sea view offered nothing to distract the attention of the voyagers. There is something, too, especially fatiguing in seeing every one around you busy but yourself, while the novelty, the bustle, and the noise, prevents your attention from being riveted by conversation or lost in reverie: you soon become equally restless and weary.

This was their second voyage, too, and that forced a comparison with their first. The scene was as much changed as themselves. Then the sky, in whose clear, unbroken blue their future seemed mirrored, was bright as their own hopes; the dark eyes that looked kindly on them were the familiar and flashing glances of their own countrymen; the language they heard was that which they had known from their infancy. Now, all was strange and cold; there was no sympathy in the light eyes and fair faces which turned upon them with no deeper feeling than curiosity. Then the land, with its battlemented town, and stately church rising high in middle air, and the groves and orchards of its environs, green to the very ocean, lingered long on the transparent element, as if loath to lose sight of them. The wind was so soft, so warm, and laden with the early fragrance