Ladies’ Edinburgh Magazine > Volume 5

The Beggar of Capo di Monte : a Tale of Sixty-one. 357
Concetta since her first coming to the rocks, but in all her
relation he could find no reason for suspecting either Paolo
or Matteo of having broken faith to Filippo. He determined
on speaking to her alone, even if obliged to return to the
rocks without the knowledge of Claudia. He had conceived
a passion for the girl, which every obstacle seemed but to
increase, and he secretly vowed to sacrifice all his hopes of
plunder, and even his allegiance to Filippo and his cause,
rather than relinquish his pursuit.
We have said that Filippo, accompanied by Paolo, had
been absent more than a month, and yet no mention was
made of their return. If Claudia had any expectation of
this, she carefully concealed it. Maddalena was always
more irritable when her father was away, for there was a
monotony in their life during his absence that wearied her
young spirit. She would willingly have risked much of her
comfort to share in the excitement of his journeys by land
and sea, for the love of adventure seemed inherent in her
nature. Her whole conversation with Concetta was com¬
posed of the stirring incidents of their lives before they had
sought refuge in that deserted region. Concetta, to her
.surprise, gathered from Maddalena's history that Italy was
not their native country, that her father had fallen into some
great trouble when a young man, and was obliged to leave his
country, and that her Aunt Livia had gone with him to share
his exile. Her parents had had two children besides herself,
but they died young, and before she could remember; and
Claudio and jMatteo, she added, did not join Filippo and Livia
immediately, but when her father came back from his tem¬
porary home, her mother and Matteo followed him to Sicily,
where they had lived ever since.
On hearing this, Concetta had with some difficulty
refrained from betraying too great interest in this recital,
for she was eagerly watching for some word that might give
her a clue to Matleo's connection with Filippo. At length
she asked, in as careless a manner as she could assume, if
Matteo was a brother of Claudia's ? Maddalena seemed
surprised at the question, never having doubted but that
Concetta knew of the relationship between them.
' Only a lialf-brother,' she said. His father was a soldier,
and was killed fighting for his liberty; and Matt€o's mother
had afterwards married the father of Claudia, who lived at
Prague.
Concetta listened with intense interest, for she now
believed she had found at least one link of the mysterious