eyes, her
soft, red lips, and yearningly confess that it would have been sweet to
hold her in his arms and kiss her, and, since he had forever lost his
Ruth, he could find no more faithful, sensible, tender wife than she.

But what should he, the student, the wandering disciple of Art, do with a
bride, a wife? The best and fairest of her sex would now have seemed to
him an impediment, a wearisome clog. The thought of being obliged to
accomplish some fixed task within a certain time, and then be subjected
to an examination, curbed his enjoyment, oppressed, angered him.

Grey mists gathered more and more densely over the sunny land, for which
he had longed with such passionate ardor, and it seemed as if in that
luckless hour, he had been faithless to the "word,"--had deprived himself
of its assistance forever.

He often felt tempted to send Coello his ducats and tell him he had been
hasty, and cherished no desire to wed his daughter; but perhaps that
would break the heart of the poor, dear little thing, who loved him so
tenderly! He would be no dishonorable ingrate, but bear the consequences
of his own recklessness.

Perhaps some miracle would happen in Italy, Art's own domain. Perhaps the
sublime goddess would again take him to her heart, and exert on him also
the power Sophonisba had so fervently praised.

The ambassador and his secretary, de Soto, thought Ulrich an unsocial
dreamer; but nevertheless, after they reached Venice, the latter invited
him to share his lodgings, for Don Juan had requested him to interest
himself in the young artist.

What could be the matter with the handsome fellow? The secretary tried to
question him, but Ulrich did not betray what troubled him, only alluding
in general terms to a great anxiety that burdened his mind.

"But the time is now coming when the poorest of the poor, the most
miserable of all forsaken mortals, cast aside their griefs!" cried de
Soto. "Day after to morrow the joyous Carnival season will begin! Hold up
your head, young man! Cast your sorrows into the Grand Canal, and until
Ash-Wednesday, imagine that heaven has fallen upon earth!"

Oh! blue sea, that washes the lagunes, oh! mast-thronged Lido, oh! palace
of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward gazing, mind,
oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold and paintings, oh!
ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble palaces, for which
the still surface of the placid water s