at they could understand, the
language of the heart. One single drop of bitterness had mingled with
his inexhaustible stream of happiness; one grief only had clouded his
sunny life--the death of his wife--and moreover he had forgotten that.

All the affections of his soul were turned upon Nisida, whose birth had
caused her mother's death; he loved her with that immoderate love that
old people have for the youngest of their children. At the present
moment he was gazing upon her with an air of profound rapture, and
watching her come and go, as she now joined the groups of children and
scolded them for games too dangerous or too noisy; now seated herself on
the grass beside their mothers and took part with grave and thoughtful
interest in their talk. Nisida was more beautiful thus than she had been
the day before; with the vaporous cloud of perfume that had folded her
round from head to foot had disappeared all that mystic poetry which put
a sort of constraint upon her admirers and obliged them to lower their
glances. She had become a daughter of Eve again without losing anything
of her charm. Simply dressed, as she usually was on work-days, she was
distinguishable among her companions only by her amazing beauty and by
the dazzling whiteness of her skin. Her beautiful black hair was twisted
in plaits around the little dagger of chased silver, that has lately
been imported into Paris by that right of conquest which the pretty
women of Paris have over the fashions of all countries, like the English
over the sea.

Nisida was adored by her young friends, all the mothers had adopted
her with pride; she was the glory of the island. The opinion of her
superiority was shared by everyone to such a degree, that if some bold
young man, forgetting the distance which divided him from the maiden,
dared speak a little too loudly of his pretensions, he became the
laughing-stock of his companions. Even the past masters of tarentella
dancing were out of countenance before the daughter of Solomon, and did
not dare to seek her as a partner. Only a few singers from Amalfi
or Sorrento, attracted by the rare beauty of this angelic creature,
ventured to sigh out their passion, carefully veiled beneath the most
delicate allusions. But they seldom reached the last verse of their
song; at every sound they stopped short, threw down their triangles and
their mandolines, and took flight like scared nightingales.

One only had courage enough or passio