The Genoese understood the struggle, though he foresaw its termination,
and he resumed the discourse himself, partly with the kind wish to give
the maiden time to reflect maturely before she answered, and partly
following a very natural train of his own thoughts.
"There is naught sure in this fickle state of being;" he continued.
"Neither the throne, nor riches, nor health, nor even the sacred
affections are secure against change. Well may we pause then and weigh
every chance of happiness, ere we take the last and final step in any
great or novel measure. Thou knowest the hopes with which I entered life,
Melchior, and the chilling disappointments with which my career is likely
to close. No youth was born to fairer hopes, nor did Italy know one more
joyous than myself, the morning I received the hand of Angiolina; and yet
two short years saw all those hopes withered, this joyousness gone, and a
cloud thrown across my prospects which has never disappeared. A widowed
husband, a childless father, may not prove a bad counsellor, my friend, in
a moment when there is so much doubt besetting thee and thine.
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