Page:Valperga (1823) Shelley Vol 1.djvu/277

Ch. XIII.] round her neck: Castruccio gazed on her, and would have given worlds to have embraced her, and to print on her glowing cheek a kiss of love; he dared not,—but his heart swelled with joy, when she turned to him with an affectionate smile, and he whispered his heart—"She is mine."

The second day William Borsiere was prepared to amuse the guests by his own and his companions' talents. His task was more difficult to perform than that of Castruccio, for his materials were not so easy to be controlled as hawks and hounds. Guarino was mortally offended by the choice of Euthanasia with regard to the king of the day, and declared that he had a cold, and could not sing. Nothing but his intolerable vanity vanquished his sullenness; for, when he found that, upon his refusal, Borsiere passed him by, and that his ill humour would only punish himself by consigning him to obscurity, he consented to be numbered among the recruits of the day. Andreuccio was less tractable, for he was less vain; and it was sheer avarice that caused his anger, when he imagined that Borsiere would be the Rh