biton from its case, communicating all that has happened
to the intelligent Familiar; hark to the mother's merry, low, English
laugh. Why, Viola, strange child, sittest thou apart, thy face leaning
on thy fair hands, thine eyes fixed on space? Up, rouse thee! Every
dimple on the cheek of home must smile to-night. ("Ridete quidquid est
domi cachinnorum." Catull. "ad Sirm. Penin.")

And a happy reunion it was round that humble table: a feast Lucullus
might have envied in his Hall of Apollo, in the dried grapes, and
the dainty sardines, and the luxurious polenta, and the old lacrima a
present from the good Cardinal. The barbiton, placed on a chair--a tall,
high-backed chair--beside the musician, seemed to take a part in the
festive meal. Its honest varnished face glowed in the light of the lamp;
and there was an impish, sly demureness in its very silence, as its
master, between every mouthful, turned to talk to it of something he had
forgotten to relate before. The good wife looked on affectionately, and
could not eat for joy; but suddenly she rose, and placed on the
artist's temples a laurel wreath, which she had woven beforehand in fond
anticipation; and Viola, on the other side her brother, the barbiton,
rearranged the chaplet, and, smoothing back her father's hair,
whispered, "Caro Padre, you will not let HIM scold me again!"

Then poor Pisani, rather distracted between the two, and excited both by
the lacrima and his triumph, turned to the younger child with so naive
and grotesque a pride, "I don't know which to thank the most. You give
me so much joy, child,--I am so proud of thee and myself. But he and I,
poor fellow, have been so often unhappy together!"

Viola's sleep was broken,--that was natural. The intoxication of vanity
and triumph, the happiness in the happiness she had caused, all this was
better than sleep. But still from all this, again and again her thoughts
flew to those haunting eyes, to that smile with which forever the memory
of the triumph, of the happiness, was to be united. Her feelings, like
her own character, were strange and peculiar. They were not those of a
girl whose heart, for the first time reached through the eye, sighs
its natural and native language of first love. It was not so much
admiration, though the face that reflected itself on every wave of her
restless fancies was of the rarest order of majesty and beauty; nor a
pleased and enamoured recollection that the sight of this strange