ure of my friend, yet, in a measure, I did indeed
voice my doubts.

But my dear friend was not to be fretted by my agitations, and much to
my surprise and something to my chagrin, would indeed scarcely consider
them as, to my thinking, they deserved to be considered.

"I feel very sure," he said, tranquilly, "that we shall succeed in what
we are set to do to-night, though I could give you no other reason for
my confidence than the certainty that reigns so serenely in my heart.
Have you not already noted, comrade, for all that you are young and the
way of the world before you, how there sometimes comes to one, although
rarely, such a magic mood in which the liberated spirit seems to swim in
an exalted ether, and the body seems to move uplifted in a world made to
its liking?"

It was at a later time that I learned the great cause of Messer Dante's
contentment and serenity displayed in our journey. It came, in the main,
from the fact that he had that night given and taken troth with Madonna
Beatrice, and that he esteemed himself, as most men esteem themselves in
such a case, though not all as rightly, the man the most happy in all
the world. But this joy of his had its complement and sustainer in a
marvel, a portent vouchsafed to him, as he believed and averred, that
same evening and journey. For as himself told me thereafter, he was, or
thought himself, companioned through all that night-riding by a youth
clad after the fashion of the Grecians, that wore a crimson tunic and
that rode a white horse. Ever and anon this youth turned a smiling
countenance upon Dante, as one that bade him be of cheer, for again he
should see his lady. Dante knew that strange and beautiful presence,
seen of him alone, to be the incarnation of the God of Love that had
already appeared to him before this, time and again, ever since that
morning on the Place of the Holy Felicity, where he beheld for the
second time the lady Beatrice. It is one of my regrets that I have never
been favored, on my own account, with any such celestial apparitions,
but I am glad that Dante was so graced, and I wish I had known at the
time that Love was riding by our side. The presence of Love in the
Company of Death: what an allegory for a poet!

It was very beautiful to hear Messer Dante talk as he talked, and his
calm reasoning, together with the sweetness and serenity of his
confidence, cheered me mightily. In such company, and hearkening to such
speech, it was