There was some degree of relationship between your grandfather and
myself; and your mother was attached to me by the ties of sentiment,
which, as we grew up, united us still more strongly than those of
blood. Our pleasures and our tastes were the same; and a similarity of
misfortunes might, perhaps, contribute to cement our early friendship.
I, like herself, had lost a parent in the eruption of AEtna. My mother
had died before I understood her value; but my father, whom I revered
and tenderly loved, was destroyed by one of those terrible events; his
lands were buried beneath the lava, and he left an only son and myself
to mourn his fate, and encounter the evils of poverty. The count, who
was our nearest surviving relation, generously took us home to his
house, and declared that he considered us as his children. To amuse
his leisure hours, he undertook to finish the education of my brother,
who was then about seventeen, and whose rising genius promised to
reward the labours of the count. Louisa and myself often shared the
instruction of her father, and at those hours Orlando was generally of
the party.
The tranquil retirement of the count's situation, the
rational employment of his time between his own studies, the education
of those whom he called his children, and the conversation of a few
select friends, anticipated the effect of time, and softened the
asperities of his distress into a tender complacent melancholy. As for
Louisa and myself, who were yet new in life, and whose spirits
possessed the happy elasticity of youth, our minds gradually shifted
from suffering to tranquillity, and from tranquillity to happiness. I
have sometimes thought that when my brother has been reading to her a
delightful passage, the countenance of Louisa discovered a tender
interest, which seemed to be excited rather by the reader than by the
author. These days, which were surely the most enviable of our lives,
now passed in serene enjoyments, and in continual gradations of
improvement.
'The count designed my brother for the army, and the time now drew
nigh when he was to join the Sicilian regiment, in which he had a
commission. The absent thoughts, and dejected spirits of my cousin,
now discovered to me the secret which had long been concealed even
from herself; for it was not till Orlando was about to depart, that
she perceived how dear he was to her peace. On the eve of his
departure, the count lamented, with fatherly yet manly tenderness, the
distance which was soon to separate us. "But we shall meet again,"
said he, "when the honors of war shall have rewarded the bravery of my
son." Louisa grew pale, a half suppressed sigh escaped her, and, to
conceal her emotion, she turned to her harpsichord.