And yet the two young people had never declared their affection; they had grown together like two trees whose roots are mingled, whose branches intertwined, and whose intermingled perfume rises to the heavens.

Only their wish to see each other had become a necessity, and they would have preferred death to a day's separation.

Teresa was sixteen, and Vampa seventeen.

About this time, a band of brigands that had established itself in the Lepini mountains began to be much spoken of.

The brigands have never been really extirpated from the neighborhood of Rome.