THE FLOWER – GIRL OF FLORENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 564, 31 October 1871, Page 2

THE FLOWER - GIRL OF FLORENCE.

i ' A.DiEtTv paniers, vendangessontfaites,' is | the pretty mournful refrain of a Provencal I song. It might be sung now in the City [ofFlowers, which has new street* and squares, and public promenades and founI tains, and banks and shops, but alas ! there I are no more flower-girls! In the Cnseine | nnd cafes are now rarely seen those dainty j figures so jauntily dressed, all posj sessed of. the beauty of youth, and some rejoicing m a loveliness of a nobler j and rarer type, carrying basketfuls of the ' choicestrflowers which they used to proffer ! with the artless yet graceful courtesy j of their country to passers-by. ' At the end lof the season, a sum of money was given for these flowers, so that all the ng]j part of the transaction, the buying and selling was hidden from view. The boquets were ! given and received with sraile3 and cordial I words and merry farewells ' until to-mor- ' row' were exchanged, and that was all. A bout ten years ago, one of these flowergirls was a great favourite and especially , admired by the foreigners,—tinglish, i American, and German who stopped to ! hear the band in the Piazzone of the Cascine.

• Oh auntie look ! what a pretty girl !" said Maud Halifax, herself a very pretty girl, (o the lady who was with her. They had stopped to hear the music on one warm April afternoon. Maud had been leaning back tired and;exhausted, for .she was in very bad health, when this lovely vision of a girl of her own age stood beside the carriage and roused her. • the is very pretty,'said Miss Halifax, 1 but what is very strange, she is very like you.' 'Oh aunt! how you flatter!' It was the fact, however; the English young lady and the Italian girl were as like as sisters. Both had dark eyes slightly aquiline noses, broad low foreheads and beautiful mouths ; but the Italian was as blooming as. her own flowers. Maud was thin, pale and languid. ' JD6 you not think I am right ?' said Miss Halifax in French to a young Hungarian officer who now came up. He assented hastily, but not before both the faces he had glanced at blushed to the roots of the hair worn by both in the same way, drawn back in simple waves from the forehead.

The flower-girl hastily threw some roses into the carriage and vanished.

'I am tired; l«t me go home,' said Maud. ' Shall we see you this evening?' said Miss Halifax to the officer.

' I do not know. Yes, yes ; I will come.' Tlie Halifax«s went home. The young officer followed the flowergirl. She held out her basket to him. * I told you,' said he with an air of authority, ' that you were never to go near that carriage.' • Why ?' •JS'ever mind; I have my reasons, Drodata.' ' Shall I ever know them ?' ' JNo, perhaps not.' He turned on his heel and was gone. The girl looked after him thoughtfully. ' I wish I knew,' she murmured. ' What do you wish to know ?' said a young Italian artist who came up ' I can tell you a great many things. Count JLindau for instance, that young man who has just been buying your flowers, is engaged to bo married to the rich Kngiish girl at the Hotel de la Ville who is so ill. If she lives to be married he will be a rich man ; for it is said her father has settled fifty thousand Irancs a year on her husband. What is the matter Drodata P—' I must go home.' The poor girl's very lips where white.

' Come I will take you,' he said ; for he saw she was trembling too much to be able to walk;

They ntepped aside from the busy crowd. The music was pouring for h its peals of gay melody, the sky was bright aad the flowers Drodata carried seamed laughing up in elli-Ii mockery iv her face ; but she thought of ju.t'iiii.v. hoard nothing, but the dreadful words Carlo .-.ialaspani had spoken: 'Count Lindau is. going to be married.'

Why the:i ; . Pi Iheiastsix months told her he lov.-.i . r ai-.d loved her only P Why.lvid h n Sflitl i.'jit lie was glad "that he was a'Geyi!) n, fnr/iuVtris as'she had married him he -\ ouM fak o her from Florence ; aud at fragile no one would look down upon her for they would not kcow whether she had been a flower girl or a countess ? Why ? why ? Alas! there was no reply. Carlo was well known to her. He had always been most kind to her mother and to herself. She called it kindness ; but in truth it was sincere and devoted love which.he felt for her. But there is often this terrible disparity and inequality in love—on one side fire, and on the other frost* The one loves, the other is loved ; and between the active and passive of that verb what a world of difference !

Drodata had no father. She had heard he had died when she was an infant at Venice ; and Ida Benelli, her mother, had come to Florence, poor and heart-broken, to learn how to support herself and her child. No one knew more than that fact about the pale beautiful woman. She was alone with her child, and worked hard at her needle- to support both. She wasyhowever, evidently of gentle birth though she never alluded to the past ; and was as simple and: unpretending as if she had always lived by the labour of her hands. But evidently there had been a great sorrow in her life, and it was one she never got over. She was always sad and somewhat stern. . i -.<. > .. , ;-.

They lived on the ground-floor of a little villa near Florence, and the flowers they cultivated were sold by Drodata. Sometimes her mother accompanied her; sometimes one of the older flowers-girls took charge of Drodata. ! Count Lindau had been slaying at a neighbouring villa, and it was during his walfts he bad met Drodata. She used to go sometimes to see the lady at whose villa he was staying,and after a few meetings be told her he loved her. Drodata brought him to her mother, and Ida Benelli gave her consent to their marriage. She told him there was no disparity iv birth between them, and that the secret of her life should be made known to him on the day the marriage; till then she wished the engagement to be secret. Not even Carlo Malaspina, though he was so good a friend, knew of it. : Now, as he took poor Drodala home, he first became aware of it. It was fortunate for Lindau that Carlo could not leave

the poor girl or the Cascine of Florence would have been disturbed by a summary act of vengeance. When they arrived at\ , the villa poor Drodata dragged herself up \ j to her room. 1 ' Tell mamma,' she said, as the terrs I streamed down her face. Ida Beneili listened with set lips and , kindling eyes. ' He shall not roarry this i English girl,' she said ; ' her father shall . know what a traitor he is.' SEe event upstairs, kissed the poor tear- ,! stained ciieek of her givl, and went , I down again. ' Come with me, Carlo,' she , said. Mr. Halifax wan at; dinner when he ', ! was told he was wanted. ' Who is it ?' ; ' A lady. . She says she will wait.' "'Who is in the dra',\ ing-room?' 'Maud is thore,' said Miss Halifax. ' She said she would have some tea there instead of dining with us.' When Mr. Halifax had finished he weals to the drawing-room. Th« lights had not been lit. He heard her daughter's voice, conversing with some one; and as his eyes became accustomnd t~ the gloom he saw a tall slight form leaning over the couch where she lay. : : . 11 hear you wanted me,' he said politely. ' How can I serve madame ? At that moment the waiter came in and the light fell on Ida's face. 'Good Heaven!' said Mr, Halifax. ' Ida S Have the waves given up the dead ? ~ 'Is it you—you —you ?' and the poor woman fell at his feet. ' What is the matter, papa P' said Maud, sobbing. There waß n good deal of confusion at first, but finally Ida was restored to her senses and then Mr. Halifax ex* plained aud Ida explained. He had married Ida Contarina afc Venice twenty years before. A year after their marriage, just before the birth of her child, Ida's conteasor so filled hej with fears for her own soul and that d£tne child about to be born,that the poor woman nearly lost her senses. She determined to fly and leave no trace by which she could be re* called. She threw her veil and mantle out of her gondola, and disguised in an . ecclesiastical costume, left Venice. There was a rumour that she had committed suicide. This was industriously circulated by the priest; and poor Mr. Halifax elft Venice miserable and convinced that he was a widower. Two years afterwards, to please his sister, he married a young English girl who died in giving birth to Maud, He thought there was a curse upon him, that all he loved should thus be taken. J3e consigned Maud to his sister and spent years in travelling in Egypt, India, China, Greece, Syria — everywhere but Italy-—un-til he had been summoned home on account of Maud's health. On growing up Maud had shown signs of great delicacy. For the last two years—she was now seventeen (Drodata was nineteen but from her health and bloom looked as young, if not younger than her sistes) —she had been in Ic-tly. She had regained a little strength at Florence, had gone out a little into society, and had met Count Lindau. It was well known that she was a rich heiress ; he had proposed and been accepted. Mr. Halifax, from the moment he had returned to Italy, had become more melancholy and aloomy than ever ; he seemed hauuted by bitter and undying memories. He felt that his daughter also would be taken from him and shuddered as he looked at her. Ib was a sad home and Maud had been naturally pleased afc the cheerful genial manners of the youug Hungarian, and looked upon her marriage as an escape from the erer-deepening gloom of her home.. But once the marriage was settled, Lindau became cold and somewhat inattentive. The quick instincts of womanhood told Maud that she was notloven; she had heard whispers of Lindau's admiration for some beautiful flower-girl. When she saw Drodata she had an intuitive knowledge that it was she.

She was thinking of these things that night when the waiter ushered in a lady Tda had corns up to her and had also been struck apparently by Maud's likeness to Drodata.

In her beatiful pathetic voice Ida had told Maud the purpose of her visit. ' I have come to you to save you from a mercenary man, as I would wish any one to have come to save my child had she been thus betrayed and deceived. Ho must lose you, as he has lost her. Jt was at this point of the conversation that Mr. Halifax had entered. ";

, JVeed I describe the happiness, tardy as it was, of these two re-united hearts? Need I dwell upon the warmth with which the two sisters accepted their new relationship ? .Need I say that Lindau was dismissed ?

About a month afterwards a carriage on the Cascine was the centre of attraction to all present. In it was Miss Halifax, and by her side was a lady of faded but exquisite beauty. Opposite were two girls so alike that but for the paler complexion and slighter form they could scarcely have been known apart. They were Mr. Halifax s two daughters. ' Was not Count Lindau to have married the pale one once P' asked a young Italian of his friend.

1 Yes, and he was in love with both, I believe ; but he has left Florence now. At present I. should say, the only man who has chance with them is - Carlo Malaspina.' r - ' But Malaspina was in love, I thought, with that beautiful Drodata, who was as good as she was as beautiful.'- ' That beautiful Drodata is the eldest Miss Halifax. There was some family quarrel and Mrs. Halifax lived away from herjhusband nineteen years. He-thought she'was dead and married again, tie only knew the truth a month ago.' . .. \ 'What a romance!' \

'Yea; and who could be a^jprdtt # heroine than our pretty flower-girl ?'