, to report to
Meleagro de' Martiri and Stazio Orsini, to Donna Euforbia, Donna
Clarice, and Donna Simpatica--friends and poets alike--that he had had a
most rare vision.

"To me it seems," he said, "that that fair-haired daughter of the
Greeks, Madonna Elena, the slim, the rosy-fingered disturber of the
repose of cities, hath appeared to distract this our city of Padua. Me
at least she hath distraught. Fair friends, sister and brother poets,
you shall understand that henceforth I devote myself to this lady and
her praise. More, I vow a vow, and call upon you to register it in the
Golden Book of the Amorous Gests of Padua, that I will never cut my
nails again until I have enthroned her sovereign lady of me, and of you
all, and of this our humane Commonwealth. By golden Venus and her son,
by Mars armipotent powerless in such toils, and by Vulcan in chains too
cunning for his pincers; by Saints Ovid and Sappho, the Chian, the
Mantuan, and the Veronese, I swear this oath."

"It is well done, Alessandro," assented the listening company.

That evening in his fellowship, Meleagro and Stazio, cloaked and lurking
under the arcades, saw Ippolita walk down the Via Pozzo Depinto arm in
arm with two shawled friends, transparently in the ranks of the _popol
basso_, but as obviously not of them. Her golden head was bare; also by
a head she sailed above them. They followed her by the Via Zitelle, over
the Ponte della Morte, further yet, between garden walls topped with
lilac, into the Prato della Valle. There the three unconscious girls
mingled with the concourse of those who took the air under the still
trees. Ippolita, that slim, tall marvel, seemed not to be remarked by
any; Alessandro, swooning on his friend's arms, could scarcely believe
it.

"Edge up, Alessandro, edge up--accost, accost!" said Meleagro; but--

"Do you think I would profane the _aura_ of her by my abhorred
presence?" cried the lover. "Ah, God of Love, I would die sooner! I
feel, indeed, my Daemon at work. Let me sit upon this bench--my tablets,
ha!" He sat. Finely disordered verse, _rime sciolte_, resulted; but
Ippolita was so far unperturbed.

Gradually, however, it came to her notice that she was watched. There
was singing under her windows at night; the day brought parties of noble
youths into the _Vicolo_ scarlet-capped, feathered, slashed, and booted
youths; ladies were with them as often as not; garlanded ladies with
square-cut bodices showing half t