, sweet the flight, at dead of night,
When up the immeasurable height
The thin cloud wanders with the breeze
That shakes the splendor from the star,
That stoops and crisps the darkling seas,
And drives the daring keel afar
Where loneliness and silence are!
To cleave the crested wave, and mark
Drowned in its depth the shattered spark,
On airy swells to soar, and rise
Where nothing but the foam-bell flies,
O'er freest tracts of wild delight,
Oh, sweet the flight at dead of night!'"

sang Eve. "Ah, there they are! I am so tired that I could fall asleep
here, if there were but a reed to lean against!"

"_Appoggiatevi a me_" sighed a murmurous voice in her ear, with musical
monotone.

A little shiver ran over Eve, but no soul saw it; in an instant she knew
the sound that had all day haunted the sea-turn; yet she could neither
smile nor be angry at Luigi's simplicity; with a peremptory motion of
her hand, she only waved him away, and fortified herself among her
companions, who, thoroughly awakened, made the night ring as they wended
along. They rallied Eve, then grew vexed that she refused the sport, and
kept silence awhile, only to break it with gayer laughter, elate with
life while half the world was stretched in white repose. At length they
paused to rest in the lee of a cottage that seemed more like a hulk
drawn up on shore than any house, but matted from ground to chimney in a
smother of woodbine.

"A picturesque place," said one of the chevaliers.

"And a picturesque body lives in it," replied another. "The beauty of
the fisher-maidens. I have seen her out upon the flats at low tide
digging for clams, barefooted, the short petticoats fluttering, a
handkerchief across her ears,--and outline could do no more."

"I have seen her, too," said Eve. "Though she lives in the belt of
sunburn, she is white as snow,--milk-white, with hazel eyes. She has
hair like Sordello's Elys. She is a girl that dreams. Let us serenade
her till she sees visions."

And Eve's voice went warbling lightly up, till the others joined, as if
the oriole in his hanging nest not far away had stirred to sing out the
seasons of the dark.

"The hours that bear thy beauty prize
Star after star sinks numbering,--
The laden wind at thy lattice sighs
To find thee slumbering, slumbering!

"Ah, wantonly why waste these hours
That love would fain be borrowing?
Soon