ress. "Her foot is too holy! she
herself has said it. Her eyes are too lofty,--_gli occhi azzurri!_! It
is true; stood she there, who would look at the blessed saints? Ah! you
have a fair face, but it is--_traditrice_!"

And as he confronted her, with his clenched hands slightly raised and
advanced from his side, the lithe figure drawn back, the swarthy cheek,
the eager eyes, aglow, and made more vivid by his spotless attire, Eve
bethought herself that a scene in public had fewer charms than one in
private, and, casting about for escape, quietly stepped across the
street. For an instant Luigi gazed after her like one thunderstruck;
then he dashed into the vestibule and was lost in its shadows.

It was at midnight that Eve's mother, rising to close an open window,
caught sight of an outline in the obscurity, and discerned Luigi leaning
on the railing below, with one arm supporting his upturned face. "Ah,
the sad day! the sad day!" he was sighing in his native speech. "Pardon,
pardon, Signorina! Alas! I was beside myself!"

And on the next twilight Eve stood at the gate, her arms and hands full
of a flush of rosy wild azaleas from the swamps, bounty that had been
silently laid upon her by a fast and fleeting shadow. She doubted for a
moment, then dropped them where she stood. But a tint as deep as theirs
was broken by the arch and dimpling smile that flickered round her mouth
as she went in, laughing because this devotion was so strange, and
blushing because it was so genuine. "Mamma," said she, her eyes cast
down, her head askant like a shy bird's, "I am afraid I have a lover!"
And then to think of it the child grew sad. It pained her to grieve him
with the beautiful pink blossoms she had dropped, and which she knew he
would return to find; but better trivial sting than lasting ache, she
had heard. And perhaps in his tropical nature the passion would be brief
as the pain.

* * * * *

The broad, bright river flowing past the town by summer noon or night
was never left unflecked with sails. And of all who loved its swinging
bridge, its stately shores, its breezy expanses, none sought them more
frequently than Eve.

She had gone out one day with her companions--who, beside her, seemed
like the moss that clusters on a rose-bud--to watch the shoal in the
weir as the treacherous ebb forsook it. It was a favorite diversion of
Eve's,--for she always felt as if she were Scheherazade looking in