r eyes,
the warm-lighted blue, seemed to grow full on the closing lids, like
heaven's gratitude. Her beauty is wonderful. What wonder, then, if he
loves her? I should think him a squire in his degree. There are squires
of high birth and low.'

So mused Farina with his arms folded and his legs crossed in the shadow
of Margarita's chamber. Gradually he fell into a kind of hazy doze. The
houses became branded with silver arrows. All up the Cathedral stone was
a glitter, and dance, and quiver of them. In the sky mazed confusion of
arrowy flights and falls. Farina beheld himself in the service of the
Emperor watching these signs, and expecting on the morrow to win glory
and a name for Margarita. Glory and the name now won, old Gottlieb was
just on the point of paternally blessing them, when a rude pat aroused
him from the delicious moon-dream.

'Hero by day! house-guard by night! That tells a tale,' said a cheerful
voice.

The moon was shining down the Cathedral square and street, and Farina saw
the stranger standing solid and ruddy before him. He was at first
prompted to resent such familiar handling, but the stranger's face was of
that bland honest nature which, like the sun, wins everywhere back a
reflection of its own kindliness.

'You are right,' replied Farina; 'so it is!'

'Pretty wines inside there, and a rare young maiden. She has a throat
like a nightingale, and more ballads at command than a piper's wallet.
Now, if I hadn't a wife at home.'

'You're married?' cried Farina, seizing the stranger's hand.

'Surely; and my lass can say something for herself on the score of brave
looks, as well as the best of your German maids here, trust me.'

Farina repressed an inclination to perform a few of those antics which
violent joy excites, and after rushing away and back, determined to give
his secret to the stranger.

'Look,' said he in a whisper, that opens the private doors of a
confidence.

But the stranger repeated the same word still more earnestly, and brought
Farina's eyes on a couple of dark figures moving under the Cathedral.

'Some lamb's at stake when the wolves are prowling,' he added: ''Tis now
two hours to the midnight. I doubt if our day's work be over till we hear
the chime, friend.'

'What interest do you take in the people of this house that you watch
over them thus?' asked Farina.

The stranger muffled a laugh in his beard.

'An odd question, good sooth. Why, in the first place, we like