It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento, towards the close of the autumn of 1871. Upon the part of the craggy sh.o.r.e, to the left of the town, on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem in which the romance of Christian heroism has ever combined elevation of thought with silvery delicacies of speech, had charmed her childhood, reclined the young bride of Graham Vane. They were in the first month of their marriage. Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of all that had preyed upon her life, from the hour in which she had deemed that in her pursuit of fame she had lost the love that had coloured her genius and inspired her dreams, to that in which....
The physicians consulted agreed in insisting on her pa.s.sing the winter in a southern climate; and after their wedding, which took place in Florence, they thus came to Sorrento.
As Isaura is seated on the small smoothed rock, Graham reclines at her feet, his face upturned to hers with an inexpressible wistful anxiety in his impa.s.sioned tenderness. "You are sure you feel better and stronger since we have been here?"
THE END.