out the lady who had played the guitar
in the arbor. Thereupon he began to dance with extraordinary artistic
skill, and describe all sorts of letters on the grass with the points
of his toes, really trilling with his feet, and now and then jumping
pretty high in the air. But he soon had enough of it, for he was
rather corpulent. His jumps grew fewer and clumsier, until at last he
withdrew from the circle, puffing violently, and mopping the moisture
from his forehead with a snowy pocket-handkerchief. Meanwhile, the
young man, who had regained his composure, brought from the inn some
castanets, and before I was aware all were dancing merrily beneath the
trees. The sun had set, but the crimson sky in the west cast bright
reflections among the shadows, and upon the old walls and the
half-buried columns covered with ivy in the depths of the garden,
while below the vineyards we could see the Eternal City bathed in the
evening glow. The dance in the still, clear air was charming, and
my heart within me laughed to see how the slender girls and the
lady's-maid glided among the trees with arms upraised like heathen
wood-nymphs, and kept time to the music with their castanets. At last
I could no longer restrain myself; I joined their ranks, and danced
away merrily, still fiddling all the time.

I had been hopping about thus for some minutes, not noticing that the
others were beginning to be tired and were dropping out of the
dance, when I felt some one twitch me by the coat-tail. It was the
lady's-maid. "Don't be a fool," she said under her breath; "you are
jumping about like a kid! Read your note, and come soon; the beautiful
young Countess awaits you." She slipped out of the garden in the
twilight and vanished among the vineyards.

My heart beat fast; I longed to follow her. Fortunately, a waiter was
just lighting the lantern over the garden gate. I took out my note,
which contained a somewhat rudely penciled plan of the gate and the
streets leading to it, just as I had been directed by the lady's-maid,
and in addition the words "Eleven o'clock, at the little door."

Two long hours to wait! Nevertheless I should have set out
immediately, for I could not stay still, had not the painter, who had
brought me hither, rushed up. "Did you speak to the girl?" he asked.
"I cannot see her now. It was the German Countess's maid." "Hush,
hush!" I replied; "the Countess is still in Rome." "So much the
better," said the painter; "come then