length Antonio, in spite of his agitation, fell asleep, resting on his sword, before the crucifix; and, when he awakened in the cold morning wind, he found himself lying on the top of a small rock, surrounded by thick woods, while he thought he heard a sound as if of scornful laughter dying away in the distance. Not knowing what road to take, he wandered about at random during the greater part of that day; but, towards evening reached the door of a collier's cottage, and on the following morning proceeded on his journey towards Florence.
Chap. X.
The Meeting In Rome.
Antonio's object in going to Florence was to visit his family and relations. He was undecided what course of life to pursue, so much did he appear to be the sport of fortune, while the reality of existence, he thought, was no better than a miserable dream. He set his affairs in order; and, in his ancestral palace, gave himself up to grief, representing to himself in lively colours, in these well-known halls, his own misery and that of his parents. He often thought of that hateful witch, and of her who bore so close a resemblance to his affianced bride—that other Crescentia whom he had so strangely found and lost. This indolent prostration of mind, however, at length gave way to the desire of visiting Rome and its curiosities. He wished again to enjoy the society of his friend Alphonso and the father Crescentia, who were living there; and accordingly he left Florence, and proceeded towards that city.
The tumult of Rome, so different from any thing he had been accustomed to in Florence or Padua, greatly surprised him as he entered that city. He thought he should never be able to find any of his friends amid the mighty throng. His satisfaction was therefore the greater, when, on going up to the capitol, he met Podesta coming down from the same. The old man took him home with him, where he had the gratification of paying his respects to the mother of his Crescentia. The news of the singular death of Pietro, of Crescentia's strange restoration to life, and subsequent disenchantment. had reached Rome upon every wind that blew. But of course many perverted and false versions of the story were abroad, and therefore the parents were both glad and grieved to hear the true account of it from Antonio's lips. The abhorrence expressed for the magician, by Crescentia's mother especially, was unbounded. In the bitterness of her soul, she believed that he had been bribed by the Marconi family to poison her daughter; and that he had an additional motive thereto in the feeling, that he could again restore her to life for the gratification of his own diabolical purposes.
"Let us leave every thing to Providence," said the old man. "The circumstances as they stand are dreadful enough without our seeking to exaggerate them, by involving others in crimes of such unheard-of magnitude. However, be they guilty or innocent, I am resolved to disinherit the Marconi family, and shall leave all my possessions to the monasteries and other religious establishments here, in one of which I myself shall probably spend the remainder of my days."
"But," said the mother, with tears in her eyes, "what if it were possible to recover that other Crescentia—our lost daughter's twin-sister—whom Antonio has told us about? During your absence she was stolen away from me in her infancy; and the expressions made use of before Antonio by that old witch, who was in the pay of the Marconi family, appear to me so remarkable, that I think we ought not even yet to despair of getting back our lost child."
"My good Eudoxia," replied the father, "lay aside your dreams and vain imaginations. We have nothing to hope for on this earth but death; and that it may be soft and holy, is the only boon we ought now to pray for at the hands of Heaven."
"And if afterwards, when too late, we were to find that our poor lost child might have been recovered, what would be our remorse for not having relied with greater confidence on the merciful dispensations of the Most High!"
Podesta threw a gloomy look on Antonio, as he rejoined—"Nothing was wanting to complete our misery
