uff of yours animal, vegetable, or mineral?" asked Corbario
as the laughter subsided.

"I don't know," replied the Professor. "Animal, vegetable, mineral?
Those are antiquated distinctions, like the four elements of the
alchemists."

"Well--but what is the thing, then?" asked Corbario, almost impatiently.
"What should you call it in scientific language?"

Kalmon closed his eyes for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts.

"In scientific language," he began, "it is probably H three C seven,
parenthesis, H two C plus C four O five, close parenthesis, HC three O."

Corbario laughed carelessly.

"I am no wiser than before," he said.

"Nor I," answered the Professor. "Not a bit."

"It is much simpler to call it 'the sleeping death,' is it not?"
suggested the Contessa.

"Much simpler, for that is precisely what it is."

It was growing late, according to country ideas, and the party rose from
the table and began to move about a little before going to bed. The moon
had risen high by this time.

Marcello and Aurora, unheeded by the rest, went round the verandah to
the other side of the house and stood still a moment, looking out at the
trees and listening to the sounds of the night. Down by the pool a frog
croaked now and then; from a distance came the plaintive, often
repeated cry of a solitary owlet; the night breeze sighed through the
long grass and the low shrubbery.

The boy and girl turned to each other, put out their hands and then
their arms, and clasped each other silently, and kissed. Then they
walked demurely back to their elders, without exchanging a word.

"We have had to give you the little room at the end of the cottage,"
Corbario was saying to Kalmon. "It is the only one left while the
Contessa is here."

"I should sleep soundly on bare boards to-night," Kalmon answered. "I
have been walking all day."

Corbario went with him, carrying a candle, and shielding the flame from
the breeze with his hand. The room was furnished with the barest
necessities, like most country rooms in Italy. There were wooden pegs on
which to hang clothes instead of a wardrobe, an iron bedstead, a deal
wash-stand, a small deal table, a rush-bottomed chair. The room had only
one window, which was also the only door, opening to the floor upon the
verandah.

"You can bolt the window, if you like," said Corbario when he had bidden
the Professor good-night, "but there are no thieves about."

"I always sleep with my windo