Silvia (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE steamer which was to convey Mrs. Green and her young companion from Naples to Marseilles, was leaving the bay. The two ladies Bat on deck, Mrs. Green reading letters which she had just received, and Silvia looking her last of the land she was leaving, and feeling most inconsistently sorrowful to be going away. Indeed, as Naples, Vesuvius, and the purple islands, all seen on a background of golden sky, receded farther and farther away from before her eyes, she fairly broke down, and turned her head on one side to cry unnoticed. But no one minded her. She was alone on that boat as she was alone in life, an orphan who might steer her own course as she thought fit. The Principessa had said a hard thing, but it might be a true one: her guardian had allowed her to go to Madame de 1'Epine just as he had allowed her to go to Dom Sabino's, because he was an easy selfish man, who cared very little what became of her, so she did not trouble him. " Yes, that may be it," thought Silvia, checking her tears. " I am alone?quite alone; and am I then doing well to leave these two kind friends, who were so sorry to part from me this morning ?" She began to feel remorseful as well as sad. Why had she been so prompt, nay, so glad to leave that excellent Dom Sabino and his no less excellent sister ? She was very happy with them, surely? How beautiful and cool their mountain garden had looked that morning when she went down the narrow path which led to the columbarium, and gathered from one of its niches a bunch of maiden hair as a memorial. And as she stood and looked at the blue sea, on which still slept the freshness of the early hour, as she saw the faint silvery outlines of distant mountains fading away on the sky, and the deep green of luxuriant gardens extending from t...