The Heir of Mondolfo Read Online Free

him--her breath came quick--she spoke not--but
stepped lightly to him--and looked with such mazed ecstasy of
thought that she felt, nay, almost heard, her heart beat with her
emotion. At length she spoke--she uttered his name, and he looked
up on her gentle face, her beaming eyes and her sylph-like form
bent over him. He forgot his fears, and his hopes were soon
confirmed. For the first time he pressed the trembling lips of
Viola, and then tore himself away to think with rapture and wonder
on all that had taken place.
    Ludovico ever acted with energy and promptness. He returned only
to plan with Viola when they might be united. A small chapel in the
Apennines, sequestered and unknown, was selected; a priest was
easily procured from a neighboring convent and easily bribed to
silence. Ludovico led back his bride to the cottage in the forest.
There she continued to reside; for worlds he would not have had her
change her habitation; all his wealth was expended in decorating
it; yet his all only sufliced to render it tolerable. But they were
happy. The small circlet of earth's expanse that held in his
Viola was the universe to her husband. His heart and imagination
widened and filled it until it encompassed all of beautiful, and
was inhabited by all of excellent, this world contains.
    She sang to him; he listened, and the notes built around him a
magic bower of delight. He trod the soil of paradise, and its winds
fed his mind to intoxication. The inhabitants of Mondolfo could not
recognize the haughty, resentful Ludovico in the benign and gentle
husband of Viola.
    His father's taunts were unheeded, for he did not hear them.
He no longer trod the earth, but, angel-like, sustained by the
wings of love, skimmed over it, so that he felt not its
inequalities nor was touched by its rude obstacles. And Viola, with
deep gratitude and passionate tenderness, repaid his love. She
thought of him only, lived for him, and with unwearied attention
kept alive in his mind the first dream of passion.
    Thus nearly two years passed, and a lovely child appeared to
bind the lovers with closer ties, and to fill their humble roof
with smiles and joy.
    Ludovico seldom went to Mondolfo; and his father, continuing his
ancient policy, and glad that in his attachment to a peasant-girl
he had relieved his mind from the fear of brilliant connections and
able friends, even dispensed with his attendance when he visited
Naples. Fernando did not suspect that his son had married his
low-born favorite; if he had, his aversion for him would not have
withheld him from resisting so degrading an alliance; and, while
his blood flowed in Ludovico's veins, he would never have
avowed offspring who were contaminated by a peasant's less
highly-sprung tide.
    Ludovico had nearly completely his twentieth year when his elder
brother died. Prince Mondolfo at that time spent four months at
Naples, endeavoring to bring to a conclusion a treaty of marriage
he had entered into between his heir and the daughter of a noble
Neapolitan house, when this death overthrew his hopes, and he
retired in grief and mourning to his castle. A few weeks of sorrow
and reason restored him to himself. He had loved even this favored
eldest son more as the heir of his name and fortune than as his
child; and the web destroyed that he had woven for him, he quickly
began another.
    Ludovico was summoned to his father's presence. Old habit
yet rendered such a summons momentous; but the youth, with a proud
smile, threw off these boyish cares, and stood with a gentle
dignity before his altered parent.
    "Ludovico," said the Prince, "four years ago you
refused to take a priest's vows, and then you excited my utmost
resentment; now I thank you for that resistance."
    A slight feeling of suspicion crossed Ludovico's mind that
his father was about to cajole him for some evil purpose. Two years
before he would have acted on such a thought, but the habit of
happiness made him unsuspicious. He bent his head