“Then return and live with me, dear Marietta, and I will praise you as much, and more than you desire.”
“Santa Maria del Piê di Grotta! What a tiresome person you are, Idalie. When you have got an idea into your head, an earthquake would not get it out again. Have I not told you that I will not. If you knew the motive you would approve my resolution. I said I liked my liberty, and so forth; but that was not the reason of my flight. I do not choose to have anything to do with Giorgio and the Princess; for, believe me, dearest Idalie, disgraceful as my present mode of life seems to you, it is innocence itself compared with the crimes they were leading me into.”
“Some suspicion of this did once cross my mind,” her sister replied with a sigh, “but I rejected it as too horrible. Dear child, t
