Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/440

450 first vessel which, leaves for Sicily; but I am afraid that we must wait a few days. In the mean time let us prepare every thing. But what will your aunt say?”

“Just what she likes. Waldo is my betrothed husband; the friend of my soul, of my heart! Without him I cannot be happy. Oh, how he loves! And how contemptible I should be, if, after this, I should think of my own happiness apart from his!”

Her mind had all at once become firm and clear, and it seemed to become still more and more so every hour during the three days which it was necessary for us to wait before another steamer left for Palermo. How she was sustained during these three days, I know not, for she neither ate, drank, nor slept. She also spoke very little; her life seemed to be consecrated in the innermost of the heart. We were to set off in the evening, and in sixteen hours we should be in Palermo. Every thing was now ready. Elsa lay on her bed sleepless—and I wrote, to dissipate my own uneasiness and anxiety.

“Perhaps I needed this trial,” she said just now, “in order to prove to me how much I was attached to him!”

If he could but see her as I now see her! Shall I ever again hear her singing gayly as in former days, O! dolche Napoli, O! mol beato? Amidst autumnal storm I now leave thy soil, rich beyond all others in the grand works of art and nature, in great memories, and pleasant, quiet life in their shade! I have seen beauty and love here as never before any where on earth, but at this moment all is covered with the vail