"Who wrote it, brother ?" Orso was a little disconcerted, and Miss Lydia answered with a smile that it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead for centuries.
"You shall read Dante," said Orso, "when you are at Pietranera." "Good heavens, how beautiful it is!" said Colomba again, and she repeated three or four tiercets which she had remembered, speaking at first in an undertone; then, growing excited, she declaimed them aloud, with far more expression than her brother had put into his reading.
Miss Lydia was very much astonished.
"You seem very fond of poetry," she said.

"How I envy you the delight you will find in reading Dante for the first time!" "You see, Miss Nevil," said Orso, "what a power Dante's lines must have, when they so move a wild young savage who knows nothing but her _Pater_.
But I am mistaken! I recollect now that Colomba belongs to the guild.
Even when she was quite a little child she used to try her hand at verse-making, and my father used to write me word that she was the best _voceratrice_ in Pietranera, and for two leagues round about." Colomba cast an imploring glance at her brother.

Miss Nevil had heard of the Corsican _improvisatrici_, and was dying to hear one.

She begged Colomba, then, to give her a specimen of her powers.

Very much vexed now at having made any mention of his sister's poetic gifts, Orso interposed.