Page:Zanoni.djvu/180

150 no longer wonder why the heart ripens into fruit so sudden and so rich beneath the rosy skies and the glorious sunshine of the south.

The eyes of the actress were fixed on the broad blue deep beyond. In the unwonted negligence of her dress might be traced the abstraction of her mind. Her beautiful hair was gathered up loosely, and partially bandaged by a kerchief, whose purple colour served to deepen the golden hue of her tresses. A stray curl escaped, and fell down the graceful neck. A loose morning-robe, girded by a sash, left the breeze, that came ever and anon from the sea, to die upon the bust half disclosed; and the tiny slipper, that Cinderella might have worn, seemed a world too wide for the tiny foot which it scarcely covered. It might be the heat of the day that deepened the soft bloom of the cheeks, and gave an unwonted languor to the large dark eyes. In all the pomp of her stage attire — in all the flush of excitement before the intoxicating lamps — never had Viola looked so lovely.

By the side of the actress, and filling up the threshold, stood Gionetta, with her arms thrust to the elbow in two huge pockets on either side of her gown.

"But I assure you," said the nurse, in that sharp, quick, ear-splitting tone in which the old women of the south are more than a match for those of the north — "but I assure you, my darling, that there is not a finer cavalier in all Naples, nor a more beautiful, than this Inglese; and I am told that all these Inglesi are much richer than they seem. Though they have no trees in