Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/105

 experience infallibly brings: this first great emotion becomes unconsciously a criterion; and the judgment is harsh because the remembrance is bitter." To return to Francesca's history: No flatteries could move her; not even the proffered love of Louis himself could for an instant affect her mind. By the death of her early friend, Madame de Merieur, with whom she had resided at Paris, she was again left desolate; she only awaited the arrival of Guido from an embassy, to return with him to their native Italy. In the course of events, Francesca learns that she is the daughter of a powerful English noble. Guido and herself, with the Englishman who communicates this intelligence, now embark for England, and take up their abode at a farm-house midway between her father's (Lord Avonleigh's) castle and Evelyn's paternal home. Lord Avonleigh, for political reasons, is confined by Cromwell's party in the Tower. Many months elapse before his return. In the interim Guido dies. Never were the attendant circumstances of death so touchingly, so exquisitely depicted. How have we repeatedly lingered over those pages of truthful interest and mournful beauty!—pages which only require to be lighted up by a sunbeam from the life and immortality which have been brought to light in the Gospel, to become as important as they are interesting,—as instructive and elevating to our moral principles as they are touching and beautiful to our poetical feelings.*