But if
your father should refuse his consent to our union?'
'Leave those sad thoughts. My father wishes only to please me, and it
will be sufficient for me to ask his consent to obtain it. Even
should he refuse it, in two years the law will permit me to dispose
of myself as I choose.'
'May Heaven remove this sad presentiment from my mind; but it makes
me tremble. Oh! if you return with the desired consent of your
father! oh! if my mother, as the physicians gave me reason to hope,
should then be well! we shall be the happiest of mortals.'
The sound of a silver bell, heard from a chamber close by, took away
Sophia from her occupation. She rose hastily, saving, 'My mother! oh,
my poor mother! Adieu for a while, Edoardo.'
Edoardo Valperghi was the son of a wealthy Venetian merchant. He had
received a grave but unprofitable education, it being that which is
wholly directed to the intellect and nothing to the heart. He was
studying in one of those colleges in which the system of education is
as old as the walls of the edifice.
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