r the thought, but only for the rhyme, and with ecstatic smiles and
admiring glances they nodded to each other when, thanks to the studies
which Corilla had made in Tasso, Marino, and Ariosto, she seemed of
herself to find rhymes for the most difficult words.

An immense storm of applause resounded when she ended; and as if
awakening from an intoxicating ecstasy, Corilla glanced around with an
expression of astonishment on her features; she looked around as if she
knew not whence she came, and in what strange surroundings she now found
herself.

After a short pause, which Carlo filled out with his harp, she again put
her hand into the urn and drew out a new theme; again the inspiration
seemed to pass over her, and the holy Whitsuntide of her muse to be
renewed. Constantly more and more stormily resounded the plaudits of her
hearers; it was like a continued thunder of enthusiasm, a real salvo
of joy. It animated Corilla to new improvisations; she again and
again recurred to the urn, drawing forth new themes, and seemed to be
absolutely inexhaustible.

"It is now enough," whispered Carlo, just as she had drawn forth a new
theme. "You have but a quarter of an hour left!"

"Only this theme yet," she begged in a low tone. "It is a very
happy one, it will win for me the hearts of all these cardinals and
gentlemen!"

"Yet a quarter of an hour, and then your time is up," said he. "Remember
my oath, I shall keep my word!"

An inexplicable anxiety, a tormenting uneasiness, came over him; he had
hardly strength and recollection sufficient to enable him to accompany
Corilla, who was discussing in verse the question, "Which Rome was the
happiest, ancient or modern?"

Carlo's eyes, fixed and motionless, rested upon Natalie; it fearfully
alarmed him not to be near her, not to be able to watch every one of
her steps, every one of her motions; it seemed to him as if he saw that
savage man with his naked dagger lurking near her! And she, was she not
pale as a lily; seemed she not, in that white robe, to be already the
bride of death?

"I must hasten to her, I must protect her or die!" thought he, and, with
a threatening glance at Corilla, he showed her the hour. Corilla read in
the expression of his face that he was in earnest with his threat, and
as if her inspiration lent wings to her words, she spoke on as in a
storm of inward agitation, and with words of fire she decided that
modern Rome was the happiest, as she had the hol