ling minstrels who
had succeeded the military band; on either hand sat her friends, and she
had thus the image of that tender devotion without which a young girl is
said not to be perfectly happy; while the very heart of adventure seemed
to bound in her exchange of glances with a handsome foreigner at a
neighboring table. On the other side of the Piazza a few officers still
lingered at the Caffe Quadri; and at the Specchi sundry groups of
citizens in their dark dress contrasted well with these white uniforms;
but, for the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the broad,
empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness the presence of a few
belated promenaders only served to render conspicuous. As the giants
hammered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian sentinel, under the
Ducal Palace, uttered a long, reverberating cry; and soon after a patrol
of soldiers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with echoing feet
through the arcade into the narrow and devious streets beyond. The young
girl found it hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the
scene, or even to turn from the fine impersonal pain which the presence
of the Austrians in the spectacle inflicted. All gave an impression
something like that of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's
self was part of the pantomime; and in those days, when nearly
everything but the puppet-shows was forbidden to patriots, it was
altogether the greatest enjoyment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive
charm of the place imbued all the little company so deeply that they
scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly homeward through the deserted
Merceria. When they reached the Campo San Salvatore, on many a lovely
summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to waken a nightingale whose
cage hung from a lofty balcony there; for suddenly, at their coming, the
bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched them all, and
suffused the tender heart of the Paronsina with an inexpressible pathos.

Alas! she had so often returned thus from the Piazza, and no stealthy
footstep had followed hers homeward with love's persistence and
diffidence! She was young, she knew, and she thought not quite dull or
hideous; but her spirit was as sole in that melancholy city as if there
were no youth but hers in the world. And a little later than this, when
she had her first affair, it did not originate in the Piazza, nor at
all respond to her expectations in a love-affair. In fact, it wa