Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/133

Rh other ranges are covered with snow. There are six or seven fine streets, connected by a network of very narrow, oddly paved side-streets, whose tall houses nearly meet at the top; they are picturesque, and look like the pictures of the Turkish bazaar. Mazzini is here, and the Government hourly expect an outbreak of the Republican party. The troops are under arms, and a transport with twelve hundred men from Turin and troops from Sardinia have arrived. The offer to the Neapolitan Government to expel the exiles is the cause. The police are hunting up Mazzini; Garibaldi is here; Lord Lyons' squadron is hourly expected.

I have been abroad now two months. I have had one unsatisfactory note from Richard; he is coming back in June or July. Oh what a happiness and what anxiety! In a few short months, please God, this dreadful separation will be over. Pray! Pray!! Pray!!!

Monsieur Pernay spent an evening with me; and seeing the picture on the wall of Richard in Meccan costume, he asked me what it was; and on my telling him, he composed a valse on the spot, and called it "Richard in the Desert," and said he should compose a libretto on it. How I wish Richard were here! It makes me quite envious when I see my sister and her husband. I am all alone, and Richard's place is vacant in the opera-box, in the carriage, and everywhere. Sometimes I dream he came back and would not speak to me, and I wake up with my pillow wet with tears.

My first exclamation as the clock struck twelve on St. Sylvester's night, 1857, as we all shook hands and