A Foregone Conclusion

“It’s nine o’clock, signorina; and I thought you would be tired this morning, and would like your coffee in bed. Oh, misericordia!” cried the girl, still in whisper, with a glan...

“No, there was merely an absence, so far as they were concerned, of any other idea. I think they meant justly, and assuredly they meant kindly by me. I grew in years, and the ti...

The stir of his robes roused Don Ippolito. He slowly and weakly turned his head, and his eyes fell upon the painter. He made a helpless gesture of salutation with his thin hand,...

Why did Miss Vervain send Don Ippolito to him? Was it some scheme of her secret love for the priest; or mere coarse resentment of the cautions Ferris had once hinted, a piece of...

“I see,” said the other. “Amusing yourself as usual with the machinery. Excuse the freedom, Don Ippolito; but you ought to have been of our profession,--ha, ha! When you have th...

Florida was sitting alone on a bench near the fountain. It was no longer a ruined fountain; the broken-nosed naiad held a pipe above her head, and from this rose a willowy spray...

Mr. Ferris took his way through the devious footways where the shadow was chill, and through the broad campos where the sun was tenderly warm, and the towers of the church rose...

“We ought to be in the Piazza by nine o’clock,” said Ferris, carelessly accepting the change of subject; and he told her of his plan for seeing the procession from a window of t...

While he talked, he had been making a few lines in a small pocket sketch-book, with a furtive glance or two at Florida. When they returned to the boat, he busied himself again w...

“Thanks,” returned Mrs. Vervain; “it’s very good of you to say so, Mr. Ferris, and it’s very gratifying, all round; but don’t you see, it doesn’t serve the present purpose. What...

The painter honestly returned her fondness, and with not much greater reason. He saw that she took pleasure in his talk, and enjoyed it even when she did not understand it; and...

“Yes, mother,” answered the girl, but remained kneeling before one of the boxes, with that pale green robe in her hand which she had worn on the morning when Ferris had first br...

“Not at all, not at all,” Ferris made haste to answer, with a frown at his own awkwardness. “But your speaking English yesterday; ... perhaps what I was thinking of is quite for...

As Don Ippolito passed down the long narrow _calle_ or footway leading from the Campo San Stefano to the Grand Canal in Venice, he peered anxiously about him: now turning for a...

“I am glad of that,” returned Florida, “for I have thought it all over many times, and I know that I was not to blame, though at first I blamed myself. I never intended him anyt...