Eve smiled to herself, gathered up the scattered boughs, and went into the lighted room behind, where her gay companions clustered, appearing at the door thus laden, and with a blush upon her brow.

Mamma," said she, her lovely head bent on one side and ringed with gloss beneath the burner, "the fruit is fresh, whether you call it cherry or ciriegia." And straightway planting herself at her mother's feet, taper fingers twinkled among shadowy leaves till the boughs were bare of their juicy burden, and they all made merry together upon the spoils of Luigi.

July was following June in sunshine down the slope of the year, and Eve, pursuing her pleasures, might almost have forgotten that an image-boy existed, had Luigi allowed her to forget. But he was omnipresent as a gnat.

As she walked from church on the next Sunday afternoon alone, gazing at her shadow by the way, she started to see another shadow fall beside it. In spite of his festal midsummer attire of white linen, a sidelong glance assured her that it was Luigi; yet she did not raise her eyes. He continued by her, in silence, several steps.

Signorina Eve," said he then, "I went that I might worship with you."

But Eve had no reply.

"My prayer mounted with yours; may he forgive, il Padre mio," said Luigi. "Ebbene. It is not lovely there. It is cold. Your heaven would be a dreary place, perhaps. Come rather to mine!" For they approached a little chapel, the crystallization in stone of a devout fancy, and through the open doors, rolling organ, purple incense, and softened light invited entrance."It is the holy vespers," said the boy. "Ciascuno alla sua volta. The Signorina enters, forse?"

"Not to-day," answered Eve, gently. 'Kneel we not," then faltered he, "before one shrine, although," and he grew angry with his hesitation," at different gates?"

"Ah, certainly," said Eve. "But now I must go home."

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 dimpled smile that flickered round her mouth as she went in, laughing because this devotion was so strange, and blushing because it was 80 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 favourite diversion of Eve's, for she always felt as if she were Scheherazade looking into the pools of her fancy, and viewing the submerged city with its princes and its populace transformed to fish, when, having entered the heart-shaped inclosure, she leaned over the boatside and noted the twin tides of life whose facile and luminous career followed all the outline of the weir. For the mackerel, swimming in at the two eddies of the mouth, struck straight across in transverse courses till they met the barrier on "The Signorina refuses to come with me, either side, and then each slowly felt the way then!" he exclaimed, springing forward so that along to the end of the lobe, where, instead of he opposed her progress. "Her foot is too escaping, they struck freely across again, and holy she herself has said it. Her eyes are thus pursued their round in everlasting intertoo lofty; gli occhi azzuri! It is true; stood chase of lustre, through the darkly transparent she there, who would look at the blessed saints? surface, each current glancing on its swift and Ah! you have a fair face, but it is traditrice!" silent way, an arrow of emerald and silver. And as he confronted her, with his clenched Curving, racing, rippling with tirts, they circled, hands slightly raised and advanced from his till, warned by some subtile instinct that the side, the lithe figure drawn back, the swarthy river was betraying them, fresh fear swept cheek, the eager eyes aglow, and made more faster and faster their lines of light, the rich vivid by his spotless attire, Eve bethought her- dyes deepened in the splendid scales, and some self that a scene in public had fewer charms huddled into herds, and some, more frantic than one in private, and, casting about for than the rest, leaped from the water in shining escape, quietly stepped across the street. For streaks, and darted away like stars into outer an instant Luigi gazed after her like one thun-safety. There the sail-boat already had preceded derstruck; 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

them, and the master of the weir, having taken its place, from the dip-net was loading his dory with massive fare of frosted silver and fusing jewel. As Eve and her friends lingered yet a momen there, watching the picturesque figure

splashing bare-legged in the shallow water, one of the droll little craft known as Joppa-chaises came up beside them, a fulvous face appeared at its helm, a tawny hand was extended, and they left Luigi bargaining for fish, and stringing these simulations of massed turquoise and scale-ruby at a penny apiece.

and the undistinguished words it bore upon its wings, delicious tune and passionate meaning, seemed the speech of another planet, an orb of song, the delicate sound lost, when at sunset the threaded mist broke up and streamed away in fire, but coming again, as if they were haunted by the viewless voices of the air, when starbeam and haze tangled together at last in the dusk of summer night, and found them still rocking on the swell, vainly whistling for the wind, and slowly tiding up with the flood.

Eve,

What little wind there was that day blew from the southeast, and sheathed the brightness of the noonday sky in a soft veil of haze; and having made this pretty sight their own, Eve's party spread their sail for tacking to and fro, meaning to reach the sea. This, for some hid-rience, but so charming to remember. den reason, the wind refused to let them do, and when it found them obstinate brought an accomplice upon the scene, and they suddenly surprised themselves rocking this side the bar, and caught in the vapoury fringes of a dark seaturn, that, creeping round about, had soon so wrapped and folded them that they could scarcely see the pennon drooping at their masthead. This done, the wind fell altogether, and they lay there a part of the great bank of mist that all day brooded above the bar. Every where around them the gray cloud hung and curled and curdled; it was impossible to see an oar's-length on either side; their very faces were unfamiliar, and seemed to be looking like the faces of spirits from a different atmosphere; their little boat was the whole world, and beyond it was only void. Now and then an idle puff parted the bank to right and left, their sailed flapped impatiently, and in the sudden space they saw the barge that dashed along with the great white seine-boat heaped high with nets towering in its midst, the oars of the six redshirted rowers flashing in the sun as it cut the channel and rushed by to join the fishing-fleet outside; or they caught a glimpse of some little gunning-float, covered with wisps of hay, and carrying its single occupant couched perdu along its length; or, while they lunched and trifled and jested, Eve with her crumbs tolled about them the dwellers in the depths, and in the falling flake of sunshine laughed to see a stately aldermanic flounder, that came paddling after a chicken-bone, put to rout by a satanic sculpin, whereat an eel swiftly snaked the prize away, and the frost-fish, collecting at a chance of civil war, mingled in the mélée, tooth and nail, or rather fin and tail. Then the vapours would darken round them again, till, with the stray "Well, Eve," said one of her awaiting friends, rays caught and refracted in their fleece, it" is the earth going up and down with you? seemed like living in an opal full of cloudy As for me, my head swims like a buoy. I feel colour and fire. Far off they heard the great as if I had waltzed all day." ground-swell of the surf upon the beach, or there came the dull report of the sportsmen in the marsh, or they exchanged first a laugh and then a yawn with some other unseen party becalmed in the fog and drifting with the currents; and all day long, on this side and on that, the cloud rang with near and distant music, as if Ariel and his sprites had lost their way in it, the tinkling of a mandolin, the singing of a clear, rich voice that had the tenor's golden strain, and yet, in floating through the mist, was sweet and sighing as a flute. The melody

It was one of those days so long in the expewith her wilful, fearless ways, her quips and joyousness, had heen the life and the delight of it; now, chilled and weary, she hailed the sight of the lamps that seemed to be hung out along the shore to light them home: for their boatmen were inexperienced, and, though wind failed them, had not dared before to lift the oars, ignorant as they were of their precise whereabouts, and even now made no progress, like that of the unseen voice still hovering around them. There had been a season of low tides, and when, to save the weary work of rowing a heavy sailboat farther, it was decided to make the shore, they were hindered by a length of shallow water and weedy flat, through which the ladies of the party must consent to be carried. A late weird moon was rising, down behind the lighthouses, all red and angry in the mist still brooding over the horizon; the boat lay in the deep shade it cast; the river beyond was breaking into light reach after reach, like a blossom into bloom. Two of her friends had already been taken to the bank; Eve stood in the bow, awaiting her bearers, and watching the distant bays of the stream, each one of which seemed just on the verge of opening into an impossible midnight glory. She heard the plash of feet in the water, but did not heed it other than to fold her cloak more conveniently about her; her eye caught the contour of a vague approaching form, and then shadowy arms were reaching up to encircle her. She was bending, and just yielding herself to the clasp, when the hearty voice of her bearers sounded at hand, bidding her be of good cheer; the adumbration shrank back into the gloom, and, before she recovered from her start, firm arms had borne her to firm land.

"Nympholeptic, then," said Eve

"When you do dance, I wish you A wave of the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that.'"

"I thought they threw out the anchor down there," said the other. Are they tying her up for the night, too? How long it takes them! Oh, for an inquisition and a rack! I am so cramped! Eve, here, is extinguished. What a day it has been!"

and smiling upon him like sunshine, whether she would or no.

"You are very kind," said she, hesitating, and fluttering out the broad, snowy love-ribbon that was to ornament her lute, but, if you please, indeed"

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of a voice from the garden, a voice that outbroke sweet and strong, that snatched the measure from Eve's lips, flung a fervour into its flow, a depth into its burden, and carried it on with impetuous fire, lingering with tenderness here, swift with ardour there, till all hearts bounded in quicker palpitation when the air again was still. For deep feeling has a potency of its own, and all that careless group felt as if some deific

Indeed, the Signorina cares not for such bawbles," said Luigi, sadly, covering her with his gaze. Then he turned, mounted his tray again, and went slowly down the street, forget-cloud had passed by. ting to cry his wares.

Perhaps, after this, Luigi felt that his situation was desperate; perhaps despair made him bold, for, having already spoiled Eve's pleasure for the day, that same evening found him in her mother's garden, half hidden in the grape-vines, and watching the movements in the lighted room opposite, through the long window, whose curtain was seldom dropped.

As for Eve, what coquetry there was in her nature was but the innocent coruscation of happy spirits, the desire to see her power, the necessity of being dear to all she touched. Far from pleasant was this vehemence of devotion; the approach of it oppressed her; she comprehended Luigi as a creature of another species, another race, than herself; she shrank before him now with a kind of horror. That night in a nervous It was a gay old town in those days, kind to its excitation she did not close an eye, and in the lads and lasses, and if the streets were grass-morning she was wan as a flower after rain. grown, it seemed only that so they might give softer footing to the young feet that trod them. Almost every night there was a festival at one house or another, and this evening the rendezvous was with Eve. The guests gathered and dallied, the dancers floated round the room, the lovers uttered their weighty trifles in such seclusion or shadow as they could secure, the voices melted in happy unison. Eve, with snowy shoulders and faultless arms, escaping from the ruffle of her rosy gauzes, where skirt over skirt, like clinging petals, made her seem the dryad of a wild rose-tree just rising, and looking from her blushing cup, Eve flitted to and fro among them, and, all the time, Luigi's gaze brooded over the scene. Sometimes her shadow fell in the lighted space of turf, and then Luigi went and laid his cheek upon it; it passed, and he returned once more to his hiding-place, and the dark, motionless countenance, with its wandering, glittering eyes, appeared to hang upon the dense leafage that sheltered all the rest of him, like a wizard in whose cavities glowworms had gathered. And more than once, in passing, Eve delayed a moment, and almost caught that gaze; she was sensible of his presence there felt it, as she might have felt an apparition, as if the eyes were those of a basilisk, and she were fascinated to look and look again, till filled with a strange fear and unrest. It grew late; by-and-by, before they separated, Eve sang. It would have been impossible for her to say why she chose a luscious little Italian air, one that many a time at home, perhaps, Luigi had heard some midnight lover sing. Though it, as he listened now, he could fancy the fountain's fall, the rustle of the bough, the half-checked gurgle of the nightingale, upon the scented waft almost the slow down-floating of the scattered corolla of the fullblown flower. The tears sparkled over his face, first of delight, and then of anger. Something was wanting in the song: he missed the passionate utterance of the lover standing by the gate, and pouring his soul in his singing. Suddenly the room was startled by the ring

This state of things found at least one observer, a personage of no less authority in household matters than Paula, the tall and stately. woman of Nubian lineage who had been the nurse of Eve, and who every morning now stood behind her chair at breakfast, familiarly joining in and gathering what she chose of the conversation. Erect as a palm-tree, slender, queenly, with her thin and clearly cut features, and her head like that of some Circassian carved in black marble, she had a kinship of picturesqueness with Luigi, and could meet him more nearly on his own ground than another, for her voice was as sweet as his, and he was only less dark than she. Breakfast over, she took her way into the garden, set open the gate, and busied herself pinching the fresh shoots of the grape-vine, too luxuriant in leaves. She did not wait long before Luigi came up the side-street, his tray upon his head, his gait less elastic than beseemned the fresh, fragrant morning. Paula stepped forward and gave him pause, with a gesture.

"Sir!" said she, commandingly.

Luigi looked up at her inquiringly. Then a pleasant expectation overshot his gloomy face; he smiled, and his teeth glittered, and his eyes. Instantly he unslung his tray and set it upon the level gate-post.

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"Sir," said Paula, " do you come here often?" Tutti i giorni,” "answered Luigi, scarcely considering her worth wasting his sparse and precious English upon. "Will

"You come here often," said Paula. you come here no more ?"

Luigi opened his eyes in amaze. "You will come here no more," said Paula. "Chi lo-who wishes it?" stammered Luigi. "My mistress," answered Paula, proudly, as if to be her servant were more than enough distinction, and to mention her name were sovereign.

"Who commands?" he demanded, impera

tively.

66

Still my mistress."

66

She said? Tell me that!"

"She said, 'Paula, if the boy disturbs us | is many a pretty tambourine-tosser to smile further, we must take measures.""

"The Signorina ?”

"Her mother?"

"Not the Signorina, then!" gloomy face grew radiant.

And Luigi's

"She and her mother are one," replied Paula. Luigi was silent for a moment. One could see the shadows falling over him. Then he said, softly

"My Paula, you will befriend me?" Paula bridled at the address; arrogant in family-place, she would have assured him plainly that she was none of his, to begin with, had he been an atom less disconsolate.

"Never more than now!" said she, loftily. Luigi did not understand her; her tone was kind, but there was a "never" in her words. "I should be the most a friend," said Paula, unbending, "in urging you to forget us." "Ah, never !"

"Let me say. Can you read ?"

upon you, I'll warrant !''

But Luigi vouchsafed no response.

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Come," said she, "pluck up your courage. You will soon be better of it."

"Non saro meglio!" answered Luigi. "I shall never be better."

He lifted his head and looked at her where she stood in the light, black, but comely, transfixing her on the burning glances of his bold eyes. "In your need," said he, "may you find just such friend as I have found!" The words were of his native language, but the malediction was universal. Paula half-shivered, and fingered the amulet that her princely Nubian ancestor had fingered before her, while he spoke. Then he bowed his head to its burden, fastened the straps, and went bent and stooping upon his way, repeating sadly to himself, "And does the sun shine?"

A week passed; part of another. Eve saw no more of Luigi, but was yet all the time unHe

"Some things," replied Luigi quickly, his comfortably conscious of his espionage.

brow brightening.

"Can you write?"

"It may be. Alas! I have not tried."

"You see.'

There was no appeal from Paula's dictatorial demeanour.

"Dio! I am unfit! Ah, Jesu, I am unfit! But if she cared not-if I learned" and he paused, striving now for the purest, most intelligible speech, while his face beamed with his smiling hope.

"Listen," interposed Paula, with the dignity of the headsman. "You have no truer friend than me at this moment, as some day you will discover. Come, now, will you do me a favour?" "Di tutto cuore!"

"Then leave us to ourselves."

'Not possible!" cried Luigi, stung with disappointment.

"What would you do, then? Would you wear her life out? Would you keep her in a terror? She has said to me that she must go away. It suffocates one to be pursued in this manner. You are not pleasant to her. Hark! She dislikes you!" And Paula bent toward him with uplifted finger, and, having delivered her stroke, after watching its effect a moment, reared herself and adjusted her gay turban with internal satisfaction.

was hardly a living being to her, but, as soon as night fell, the soft starry nights now in which there was no moon, she felt him like a darker film of spirit haunting the shadow. In the daytime, sunshine reassured her, and she remained almost at peace.

She was sitting one warm afternoon at the open window up-stairs, looking over a box of airy trifles, flowers and bows and laces, searching for a parcel of sheer white love-ribbon, a slip of woven hoar-frost that was not to be found. There was none like it to be procured; this was the night of the little masquerade; it was indispensable; and immediately she proceeded to raise the house. In answer to her descriptive inquiry, Paula, who every noon nestled as near the sun as possible, responded in a high key from the attic a descriptive negative; neither had her mother, waking from a siesta in the garden, seen any white gauze folderols. The three voices made the air well acquainted with the affair.

However, Eve was not to be baffled; she remembered distinctly having had the love-ribbon in her hands on the day she first proposed the dress; it must be found, and she sat down again at the open casement, intrenched behind twenty boxes of like treasure, in any one of which the thing might have hidden itself away, Luigi cast his eyes slowly about him; they while her mother came up and established herfell on the smooth grass-plats rising with webs self with a fan at the other window, and Paula, of shaking sparkle, the opening flowers half-descending from her perch, rummaged the bowed beneath the weight of the shining neighbouring dressing-room. spheres they held, the brilliant garden bathed in dew, the waving boughs tossing off light spray on every ravaging gust, the far fair sky bending over all. Then he hid his face against the great gate-post, murmuring only in a dry and broken sob, C'è sole?"

Paula herself was touched. She put her hand on his shoulder.

"It is a silly thing," said she. "Do not take it so to heart. Put it out of sight. There

On the opposite side of the street stretched a long strip of shaven turf, known as the Parade, yet seldom used for anything but summerevening strolls, and below its velvet terraces, in a green dimple, lay a pool, borrowing all manner of umberous stains from the shore, and yet in its very heart contriving to reflect a part of heaven. Languishing elm-trees lined its edge, and beneath the boughs, whose heavily drooping masses seemed like the grapes of