COLOMBA

CHAPTER I " P6 far la to vendetta, Sta sigur', vasta anche ella." VoCERO DU NiOLO. EARLY in the month of October, 181-, Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil, a distin- guished Irish officer of the English army, alighted with his daughter at the Hotel Beauveau, Marseilles, on their return from a tour in Italy. The perpetual and universal ad- miration of enthusiastic travellers has produced a sort of reaction, and many tourists, in their desire to appear singular, now take the nil ad- mirari of Horace for their motto. To this dis- satisfied class the colonel's only daughter. Miss Lydia, belonged, " The Transfiguration " had seemed to her mediocre, and Vesuvius in erup- tion an effect not greatly superior to that pro- duced by the Birmingham factory chimneys.

Her great objection to Italy, on the whole, was its