Certainly in her fragile
appearance she expressed nothing save indefinable charm--no one,
studying her physiognomy, would have accredited her with genius,
power, and the large conceptions of a Murillo or a Raphael;--yet
within the small head lay a marvellous brain--and the delicate body
was possessed by a spirit of amazing potency to conjure with. While
she watched for the first glimpse of the carriage which was to bring
her uncle the Cardinal, whom she loved with a rare and tender
devotion, her thoughts were occupied with a letter she had received
that morning from Rome,--a letter "writ in choice Italian," which
though brief, contained for her some drops of the essence of all the
world's sweetness, and was worded thus--
"MY OWN LOVE!--A century seems to have passed away since you left
Rome. The hours move slowly without you--they are days,--even
years!--but I feel your spirit is always with me! Absence for those
who love, is not absence after all! To the soul, time is nothing,--
space is nothing,--and my true and passionate love for you makes an
invisible bridge, over which my thoughts run and fly to your sweet
presence, carrying their delicious burden of a thousand kisses!--a
thousand embraces and blessings to the Angela and angel of my life!
From her devoted lover,
"Florian.
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