time is fleeting,"
she sang to the measure of her _Non piu mesta_, beginning again to
shower its diamonds about till all the air seemed bright with her young
and sparkling voice.

* * * * *

Summer days are never too long for the fortunes of health and happiness,
and at the sunset following this same morning Eve leaned from the
casement, watching the retiring rays as if she fain would pursue. A
tender after-glow impurpled all the heaven like a remembered passion,
and bathed field and fallow in its bloom. It gave to her a kind of
aureole, as if her beauty shed a lustre round her. The window where she
leaned was separated from the street only by a narrow inclosure, where
grew a single sumach, whose stem went straight and bare to the eaves,
and there branched out, like the picture of a palm-tree, in tossing
plumes. Blossoming honeysuckles wreathed this stem and sweetened every
breath.

A figure came sauntering down the street, an upright and pliant form,
laden with green boughs. It was Luigi, with whom it had been a holiday,
and who, roaming in the woods, had come across a wild stock on whose
rude flavor the kindly freak of some wayfarer had grafted that of pulpy
wax-heart cherries, tart ruddiness and sugared snow. Pausing before Eve,
he gazed at her lingeringly, then sprang half-way up the adjacent
door-steps, and proffered her his fragrant freight. Eve deliberated for
a moment, but the fruit was tempting, the act would be kind. As he stood
there, he wore a certain humility, and yet a certain assurance,--the
lover's complicate timidity, that seems to say he will defend her
against all the world, for there is nothing in the world he fears except
herself. Eve bent and broke a little spray of the nearest branch.

"They are all for you," pleaded he,--"all."

"I have enough," said Eve.

"I brought them for the Signorina from the wood. Behold! the tints are
hers. The cream upon Madonna's shoulder,--here; the soft red flame upon
her cheek is there."

"Ah! I thank you," said Eve. "Good night."

"_Scusi_,--I beg that the Signorina take them."

"No, no," answered Eve, obliged to speak, and, hanging on her foot, half
turned away, a moment before flight; "why should I rob you so?"

"It is not take,--but give! Why? Only that to me you are so kind. _O
quanta bonta_! You speak the speech I love. You sing its songs. I was a
wanderer. _Io era solo_. Alone and sad. But since I heard your voice, I