noon
Do n't believe a word of it . My conviction is that , whatever may be said as to our frivolity , extravagance , & c. , under the Empire , we shall be just the same under any form of government -- the bravest , the most timid , the most ferocious , the kindest-hearted , the most irrational , the most intelligent , the most contradictory , the most consistent people whom Jove , taking counsel of Venus and the Graces , Mars and the Furies , ever created for the delight and terror of the world ; -- in a word , the Parisians . -- Votre tout divoue , ` FREDERIC LEMERCIER . ''' It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento , towards the close of the autumn of 1871 . Upon the part of the craggy shore , to the left of the town , on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem in which the romance of Christian heroism has ever combined elevation of thought with silvery delicacies of speech , had charmed her childhood , reclined the young bride of Graham Vane . They were in the first month of their marriage . Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of all that had preyed upon her life , from the hour in which she had deemed that in her pursuit of fame she had lost the love that had coloured her genius and inspired her dreams , to that in which ... .