set a shoulder right!"

Had she, child as she was, with love her only business, divined the
truth? Dario in his embarrassment glanced at Benedetta, who still smiled.
However, the little Princess was already darting to another subject: "Ah!
you know, Dario, at the Corso yesterday I saw a lady--" Then she stopped
short, surprised and embarrassed that these words should have escaped
her. However, in all bravery she resumed like one who had been a friend
since childhood, sharing many a little love secret: "Yes, a very pretty
person whom you know. Well, she had a bouquet of white roses with her all
the same."

At this Benedetta indulged in a burst of frank merriment, and Dario,
still looking at her, also laughed. She had twitted him during the early
days because no young woman ever sent to make inquiries about him. For
his part, he was not displeased with the rupture, for the continuance of
the connection might have proved embarrassing; and so, although his
vanity may have been slightly hurt, the news that he was already replaced
in La Tonietta's affections was welcome rather than otherwise. "Ah!" he
contented himself with saying, "the absent are always in the wrong."

"The man one loves is never absent," declared Celia with her grave,
candid air.

However, Benedetta had stepped up to the bed to raise the young man's
pillows: "Never mind, Dario _mio_," said she, "all those things are over;
I mean to keep you, and you will only have me to love."

He gave her a passionate glance and kissed her hair. She spoke the truth:
he had never loved any one but her, and she was not mistaken in her
anticipation of keeping him always to herself alone, as soon as they
should be wedded. To her great delight, since she had been nursing him he
had become quite childish again, such as he had been when she had learnt
to love him under the orange-trees of the Villa Montefiori. He retained a
sort of puerility, doubtless the outcome of impoverished blood, that
return to childhood which one remarks amongst very ancient races; and he
toyed on his bed with pictures, gazed for hours at photographs, which
made him laugh. Moreover, his inability to endure suffering had yet
increased; he wished Benedetta to be gay and sing, and amused her with
his petty egotism which led him to dream of a life of continual joy with
her. Ah! how pleasant it would be to live together and for ever in the
sunlight, to do nothing and care for nothing, and even if the worl