thos, so deeply did it touch the heart. This was the
ultimate peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan
creature and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only
this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a Faun.

There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played the sylvan
character as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses of her, then, you would
have fancied that an oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance
freely forth, endowed with the same spirit in her human form as that
which rustles in the leaves; or that she had emerged through the
pebbly bottom of a fountain, a water-nymph, to play and sparkle in
the sunshine, flinging a quivering light around her, and suddenly
disappearing in a shower of rainbow drops.

As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in Miriam there
were symptoms that the frolic of her spirits would at last tire itself
out.

"Ah! Donatello," cried she, laughing, as she stopped to take a breath;
"you have an unfair advantage over me! I am no true creature of the
woods; while you are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook
just now, methought I had a peep at the pointed ears."

Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns and satyrs taught
us first to do, and seemed to radiate jollity out of his whole nimble
person. Nevertheless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face,
as if he dreaded that a moment's pause might break the spell, and snatch
away the sportive companion whom he had waited for through so many
dreary months.

"Dance! dance!" cried he joyously. "If we take breath, we shall be as
we were yesterday. There, now, is the music, just beyond this clump of
trees. Dance, Miriam, dance!"

They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which there are many in
that artfully constructed wilderness), set round with stone seats,
on which the aged moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of
cushions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, whose strains
had enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved to be a vagrant
band, such as Rome, and all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp,
a flute, and a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear,
the performers had skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable
harmony. It chanced to be a feast-day; and, instead of playing in
the sun-scorched piazzas of the city, or beneath the windows of some
unresponsive palace, they had bethou