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18 knew that Edward Lorraine was on the Continent, and she allowed her mind to dwell on the vague, vain fancy of meeting him. It was winter, with a promise of spring, when they arrived at Naples. A few days saw them settled in a villa on the sea-coast, at some distance from the city. Emily, who loved flowers with all the passion of the poetry that haunted them, gathered with delight the clustering roses which formed a miniature wood near the house, and wore the beauty of June in the days of February. Lord Mandeville reproached her with being run away with by novelty, and said contrast gave them a double charm in England. "The blossom is a thousand times fairer when we have seen the leaf fall and the bough bare." Still, the situation of their villa was most lovely; it was quite secluded, in a little vale filled with orange-trees, now putting forth the soft green of their leaves, and the delicate white tracery of their coming buds. The grove was varied by a plantation of rose trees, a few pinasters, and a multitude of winding paths. It was evident that nature had been left for years to her own vagrant luxuriance. A colonnade ran completely round the villa, which on one side only was open to the sea, whose sounds