“Come,” she said, rising.  “Speak no more.  I am tired of the burden of the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate it.  Come out again into our garden with me.  Dismiss these cares, these burning pains and rankling wounds.  Be soothed by the cool evening air, taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew.”

So we went.  I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then she promised to love Italy only because I loved it.  I told her my secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly true.  Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I printed my soul on her lips ere I left her.

At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets, I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence.  I could not escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other consideration.  I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties.  But how changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I worked!  Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips, still those dear embraces!

So days passed on.  I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was so utterly committed that let that be lost and I was lost!  We were victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily.  My God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, “We have a country!”

Yet how could we have hoped then to continue?  Such brief success dazzled us to the past.  Piedmont had long since struck the key-note of Italy’s fortunes.  As Charles Albert forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood from her heavy jaws, till in a baptism of redder dye he absolved himself from the sin,—­so woe heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss,—­the Republic fell, Rome fell, the French entered.

Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us to escape unknown:  the Vascello had not been the only place where youth fought as the lioness fights for her whelps.  Many of us died.  Some fled.  Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst of our enemies.  Weeks then dragged away, and months.  New schemes chipped their shell.  Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to the nations.  We never lost courage; after each downfall we rose