Sandra Belloni

To you I say now, trust me for three years! Merthyr's answer is already in my bosom. Beloved!—let me say it once—when the answer to any noble thing I might ask of you is in my bosom instantly, is not that as much as marriage? But be under no deception. See me as I am. Oh, good-bye! good-bye! Good-bye to you! Good-bye to England!

Plot closes on three-year trust as 'as much as marriage' then goodbye England — romance deferred into vocation vow — so plot scores 89.

We are to make acquaintance with some serious damsels, as this English generation knows them, and at a season verging upon May. The ladies of Brookfield, Arabella, Cornelia, and Adela Pole, daughters of a flourishing City-of-London merchant, had been told of a singular thing: that in the neighbouring fir-wood a voice was to be heard by night.

Serious Brookfield damsels vs unearthly voice — cast contrast before Emilia named — so cast scores 90.

Flying from port to port to effect an exchange of stewards (the endless occupation of a yacht proprietor), Wilfrid had no tidings from Brookfield. The night before the gathering on Besworth Lawn he went to London and dined at his Club—a place where youths may drink largely of the milk of this world's wisdom. Wilfrid's romantic sentiment was always corrected by an hour at his Club.

Yacht ports then Club milk stall romance mid-book — serial cooling before ball crisis — so pace scores 85.

Here, within our salt girdle, flourishes common sense. We cherish life; we abhor bloodshed; we have no sympathy with your juvenile points of honour: we are, in short, a civilized people; and seeing that Success has made us what we are, we advise other nations to succeed, or be quiet.

Salt-girdle common-sense sermon against the wounded foreigner — Comic national prose — so prose scores 91.

Penarvon castle lay over the borders of Monmouthshire. Thither, on a night of frosty moonlight, troops of carriages were hurrying with the usual freightage for a country ball:—the squire who will not make himself happy by seeing that his duty to the softer side of his family must be performed during the comfortable hours when bachelors snooze in arm-chairs.

Frosty moonlight carriage troops to border castle — English ball geography as Emilia stage — so world scores 88.

in the neighbouring fir-wood a voice was to be heard by night, so wonderfully sweet and richly toned, that it required their strong sense to correct strange imaginings concerning it. Adela was herself the chief witness to its unearthly sweetness.

Voice before body — musical romance hooked as auditory mystery — so hook scores 92.

"I am, "Most humbly and affectionately, "Your friend, "And her daughter by the mother's side, "Emilia Alessandra Belloni."

Double name Emilia Alessandra closes the retitled novel — singer identity as signed form, not English assimilation — so innov scores 90.

A wreck from the last Lombard revolt landed upon our shores in June. His right arm was in a sling, and his Italian servant following him, kept close by his side, with a ready hand, as if fearing that at any moment the wounded gentleman's steps might fail.

Merthyr returns as sling-arm wreck before Emilia's letter — ending opens on war cost, closes on vocation vow — so ending scores 91.