In a
balcony which overhung the water, stood the youthful and ardent girl,
listening with a charmed ear and a tearful eye to one of those soft
strains, in which Venetian voices answered to each other from different
points on the canals, in the songs of the gondoliers. Her constant
companion and Mentor was near, while the ghostly father of them both
stood deeper in the room.
"There may be pleasanter towns on the main, and capitals of more
revelry," said the charmed Violetta, withdrawing her person from its
leaning attitude, as the voices ceased; "but in such a night and at this
witching hour, what city may compare with Venice?"
"Providence has been less partial in the distribution of its earthly
favors than is apparent to a vulgar eye," returned the attentive
Carmelite. "If we have our peculiar enjoyments and our moments of divine
contemplation, other towns have advantages of their own; Genoa and Pisa,
Firenze, Ancona, Roma, Palermo, and, chiefest of all, Napoli--"
"Napoli, father!"
"Daughter, Napoli. Of all the towns of sunny Italy, 'tis the fairest and
the most blessed in natural gifts. Of every region I have visited,
during a life of wandering and penitence, that is the country on which
the touch of the Creator hath been the most God-like!"
"Thou art imaginative to-night, good Father Anselmo. The land must be
fair indeed, that can thus warm the fancy of a Carmelite."
"The rebuke is just.
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