ng his thanks for the honour done his niece, but saying
that he had 'other views for her.'

Pina, however, hated him for reasons of her own, which he had either
forgotten, or which he disregarded because, in his opinion, she was
under the greatest obligation to the house. Pina's hatred of her master
was more sincere, if possible, than her affection for Ortensia, and her
contempt for his intelligence was almost as profound as his own belief
in its superiority over that of other men.

These facts explain why Pina acted as she did, though they could not
possibly excuse her evil conduct in the eyes of righteous persons like
the Senator and others of his class, who would have thought it a
monstrous and unnatural thing that a noble Venetian girl should fall in
love with a music-master, though he were the most talented and famous
musician of his day.

This was what Pina did. In the middle of the fourth lesson she
deliberately laid aside her lace-pillow and left the room, well knowing
that her master would have her thrown out of the house at once, and
ducked in the canal besides, if he ever heard of it. But he was a man of
unchanging habits. Each time that Stradella came he led him in, sat
down, listened while Ortensia sang one of his own pieces, and then went
away, not to return that morning. So when Pina was quite sure that his
coming and going had settled to a habit, she boldly ran the risk, if it
was one, and left the two together.

Alessandro Stradella was a Sicilian on both sides, though he had been
born in Naples, and he wasted no time when his chance came. He tried no
little trick of word or glance, he did not gaze into Ortensia's eyes and
sigh, still less did he boldly try to take her hand and pour out a
fervid declaration of his love; for by this time, without the exchange
of a word, the girl had taken hold of his heart, and he saw her eyes
before him everywhere, in the sunlit streets and canals, and at night,
in the dark, and in his dreams.

He did none of these things. He was the master singer of his age, and he
himself had made divine melodies that still live; he knew his power, and
he trusted to that alone. The velvet curtain had scarcely fallen behind
Pina as she went out, when he bent over his lute, and with one look at
Ortensia began to sing. But it was not one of those ninety-seven
compositions on which the Senator prided himself: it was a love-song of
Stradella's own that he had made within the week in t