ight gently touched
her hair, and gleamed in her dark, sweet eyes. She was tall, and clad in
white flowing draperies clinging softly around her slim, girlish figure,
and giving to her appearance an inexpressible daintiness, as though they
were indeed emblematic of the spotless purity of that fair young being.
Was it the chastened light, or was there indeed something spiritual,
something more than humanly beautiful in the delicate oval face--perfect
in its outline, perfect in its faint coloring and stately poise? She was
walking slowly, her every movement full of a distinctive and deliberate
grace, and her head a little upturned, as though her thoughts were far
away among the softly burning stars, rather than concerned with the
fashionable and picturesque crowd which thronged around her. A remark
from her companion, a girl of somewhat slighter stature and darker
complexion, caused her to lower her eyes, and in doing so they fell upon
the eager, impassioned gaze of the young Englishman.

Afterwards he was never ashamed to confess that that moment brought with
it a peculiar lingering sweetness which never altogether died away. It
was the birth of a new sensation, the most poignant of all sensations,
although philosophers deny and materialists scoff at it. After all,
there is something more than refined sensuality in love which has so
sudden a dawning; there is a certain innate spirituality which
sublimates and purifies it, so that the flame burns softly but brightly
still through joy and grief, mocking at satiety, surviving the sorrow of
gray hairs, triumphing over the desolation of old age, and sweetening
the passage to the grave. He was a headstrong, chivalrous young man,
passionate, loyal, and faithful, among all his faults. That first love
of his never grew cold, never lessened. It lasted forever. For some men
it is not possible to give the better part of themselves up to the
worship of a pure woman; selfishness forbids it. But this young
Englishman who sat there spellbound, absorbed in the consciousness of
this new and sweet emotion, was not one of these.

Suddenly she withdrew her eyes with a faint, conscious blush, and as she
did so she saw for the first time the Sicilian. Her whole aspect swiftly
changed. A terrified shudder swept across her features, and her lips
parted with fear. She looked into a face but a moment before, at her
first appearance, all aglow with passionate love, now black with
suppressed anger a