he banks of the sunlit stream, bedecked
with flowers and playing with the swans. Imagine that same being, who
dealt death to Agnes, now seated beneath the shade of myrtles and
embowering vines, distributing bread or pomegranate seeds to the birds
that hopped cheerfully around her. Picture to yourself that woman of
majestic beauty, whom you have seen clad in black velvet and wearing a
dark thick veil, now weaving for herself garments of flowers, and
wandering in the lightest possible attire by the seashore, or by the
rippling stream, or amidst the mazes of the fruit-laden groves.

And sometimes, as she sat upon the yellow sand, gazing on the wavelets
of the Mediterranean, that were racing one after another, like living
things from some far off region, to that lovely but lonely isle, it
would seem as if all the low and sweet voices of the sea--never loud and
sullen now, since the night of storm which cast her on that strand--were
heard by her, and made delicious music to her ears! In that island must
we leave her now for a short space,--leave her to her birds, her
flowers, and her mermaid-sports in the sea,--leave her also to her
intervals of dark and dismal thoughts, and to her long, but ineffectual
watchings for the appearance of a sail in the horizon.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE WEHR-WOLF.

It was the last day of the month; and the hour of sunset was fast
approaching. Great was the sensation that prevailed throughout the city
of Florence. Rumor had industriously spread, and with equal assiduity
exaggerated, the particulars of Fernand Wagner's trial, and the belief
that a man on whom the horrible destiny of a Wehr-Wolf had been
entailed, was about to suffer the extreme penalty of the law, was
generally prevalent.

The great square of the ducal palace, where the scaffold was erected, was
crowded with the Florentine populace; and the windows were literally alive
with human faces. Various were the emotions and feelings which influenced
that mass of spectators. The credulous and superstitious--forming more
than nine-tenths of the whole multitude--shook their heads, and
commented amongst themselves, in subdued whispers, on the profane
rashness of the chief judge, who dared to doubt the existence of such a
being as a Wehr-Wolf. The few who shared the skepticism of the judge
applauded that high functionary for his courage in venturing so bold a
stroke in order to destroy what he and they deemed an idle superstition.

B