Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/142

112 little I thought then that I should be a near neighbour and frequent visitor of all these places during the eighteen last years of my married life!) When we left Padua, we had twenty-seven miles more to go, where we exchanged for the (to us girls) new wonder of a gondola, which took us to the Hôtel Europa in Venice. We were not sorry to have got through our journey, and a blazing fire and a good supper and cigarette soon effaced the memory of the cold, starvation, and weariness we had gone through for so long. We wanted no rocking that night.

It is all very well writing; but nothing I could ever say would half express my enthusiasm for Venice. It fulfils all the exigencies of romance; it is the only thing that has never disappointed me. I am so happy at Venice. Except for Richard's absence, I have not another wish ungratified; and I also like it because this and Trieste were the last places he was in near home when he started for Africa.

Not a night passes here that I do not dream that Richard has come home and will not speak to me; not a day that I do not kneel down twice, praying that God may send him a ray of divine grace, and bring him to religion, and also, though I feel quite unworthy of so high a mission, that I may be his wife, for I so love and care for him that I should never have courage to take upon myself the duties of married life with any other man. I have seen so much of married life; have seen men so unjust, selfish, and provoking; and have always felt I never could receive an injury from any man but him without everlasting resentment.