Detmold: A Romance: Part v

XI.

IDYL OF AN ITALIAN HILL-SIDE.

NEARLY a month had now glided pleasantly away. The copy by Alice of the head of the hale and florid warrior at the Museo was approaching completion. Her father — greatly aided in his labors by the kind assistance of the elder Castelbarco — was bringing his researches into the methods and economies of the silk manufacture to a close. Nothing remained to require the longer stay of the party at Verona. They purposed to pass a few days at Venice, and then turn back to Switzerland.

The Castelbarcos fixed an evening, shortly in advance of the time selected for the departure of their friends, to hold an assembly in their honor. It was also a day or two before the three young men were to make their visit to the farm on the canal of Este, in response to the invitation of Signor Niccolo. The original appointment had been somewhat extended on account of an illness of the good old gentleman, who was now recovering.

Besides the movements hitherto noted, the party at the Torre d’Oro had made most of the short excursions that the neighborhood afforded, and also some others to a distance. They had been to Padua, where the Castelbarcos had a younger son at the university, had embarked at Peschiera and sailed up the lake to its terminus at Riva, and had spent a day in a trip to the bathing beach of the Lido at Venice. There remained only an expedition, which had been for some time planned, to gratify a desire of the young ladies to see something of the silk culture at close quarters.

They set forth one bright morning, when the heat was tempered by a light breeze, northwest to Torri, near the shore of the lake. A Veronese gentleman whom Mr. Starfield had met had an estate there, which he assured them his agent would be delighted to place at their disposal. Detmold was of the party, by invitation of Mr. Starfield, to replace his wife, who preferred to remain at home. The party consisted, then, of Alice and Miss Lonsdale, Mr. Starfield and Detmold. Two stout horses and a swarthy, ill-shaven driver, of much volubility when his ingratiatory comments were encouraged, conducted their carriage.

The road mounts and descends by turns through a country wild and picturesque and an expanse of highly cultivated gardens. They passed through Bardolino and Garda, each with its artificial port for the protection of its small craft from the blue and poetic lake, which rages not rarely with the traditional fury of a woman scorned.

Copyright, 1878, by HOUGUTON, OSGOOD & Co.

Our friends, having no exacting plan, pursued such a desultory course as pleased them. They paused to gather flowers, to drink from a clear, running spring, to inspect the interior of some vine-shaded habitation, or to exchange greetings with some pretty peasant spinning with a distaff as she walked. They noted at one time the tall figure of a woman, with a blue robe and corn-colored hair, waving them a salutation with a handkerchief, from a balcony. She remained so long immovable, with the white handkerchief drooping without a flutter, that they were astonished. It was only upon a nearer approach that they discovered that damsel, balcony, and all were but an exaggerated trick of external frescoing.

The villas by the way were embowered in plantations of aloe, acacia, and lemon, the fragrance of which filled the air. Back in the hills are pastures where herdsmen as brown as the savages of America keep their flocks; and higher still, forests and precipices, and gorges where mountain streams tear under wild bridges, on their way down to keep the blue lake always at the level of its golden brim. There are lonesome Scaligerian castles with forked battlements, and remnants of ancient walls climbing vine - terraced slopes to their bases. In this district the mulberry flourishes luxuriantly, and the silk-worm spins with its greatest delicacy.

The voluble driver pointed out here and there on the way the scene of a crime, a skirmish, or some romantic tale of love, or told them stories of the brigands of former times. He knew the brigand signals, — the turn of the eyes to the left, the hand extended with the palm up or down, and the peculiar callnote by whistling between the thumb and forefinger. Alice insisted upon learning them, — including the whistle, of which she made only a limited success, — and numbered them henceforth among her accomplishments.

The agent of the Veronese gentleman was an agile little man of excessive politeness, which, under the stimulus of the bright eyes of Alice, he exerted to the utmost. The visitors found the silkworms spread out upon wicker frames, champing vigorously at their succulent food. To see that they come to no harm, to regulate the sun and air and the fineness and quantity of their food, and to renew their beds of leaves so that there may be nothing deleterious to their best activity is an occupation of the greatest necessity, jet combining many of the elements of that dolce far niente in which the brown peasants traditionally delight.

“ The silk, signoras and gentlemen,’' said the agent, “is the most rapid of crops, and, if it were not for the occasional epidemics that prevail, one of the most profitable. A pound of bacchi, which cost but two and a half francs, and are distributed at first, in appearance like black grains of sand, in a space of nine square feet, cover at maturity two hundred and sixty square feet, and produce sometimes one hundred and fifty pounds of cocoons, at a franc and a half the pound. As to the mulberry-tree, on the leaves of which they feed, it costs less than a franc. It bears leaves fit for stripping in the fifth year, and continues till the twentieth.”

The people engaged in this culture were found in large, well-ventilated habitations. It is a sanitary condition demanded by the delicate creatures who spin the thread of the locality’s destiny. They can endure no conditions unworthy of the charming fabric they produce.

The travelers declined the further hospitality of the agent, and drove, by a grassy road, to a situation near a partly ruined farm-house in a remote quarter of the estate, to take their lunch in the open air. It was upon the slope of a long hill that rises to the Monte Baldo and commands a wide prospect. The house had once been of some importanee. There were traces of a polished stucco on the walls, and the remains of a sculptured fire-place. There were holes for musketry in the upper story, pierced by troops who had used it as an outpost in recent wars. Milk, cheese of the stracchino variety, and fragrant wine and honey were obtained here, which, with the comfortable hamper brought from Verona, were borne to the shade of a square vine - trellis, in which there was a weather-beaten table.

The repast went on happily, but sedately. There was no one like Hyson to convulse the company with uncontrollable merriment. Mr. Starfield indulged in short disquisitions from the stores of his ripe experience, or rallied the young ladies with quiet humor. In this he called upon Detmold to help him. As the custom is in this kind of raillery, those who loved each other dearly feigned hostility, and pretended to believe derogatory things of each other. In return for some playful thrust, Alice held up her hand and made to Miss Lonsdale the brigand signal which indicated that both of the gentlemen were to be dispatched instantly.

The red wine glittered in its polished bottle; the sun threw down the patterns of the vine leaves upon the white tablecloth. Their driver had eaten the portion allotted to him, at a distance, and stretched himself out to sleep.

In Italy all is openness and sunshine, adverse to mystery. Even its superstitions have been in keeping with its climate. It has nourished fair traditions of fauns and dryads and mountain nymphs; the gloomy hobgoblins, werewolves, and dark huntsmen of the North have found little countenance. Under this potent influence, upon the friendly Italian hill-side, the old secret of Detmold was no more than a remote, well-nigh vanished figment. Contentment seemed hatching out as if from a genial incubation of nature.

Mr. Starfield went away to hold some conversation with the peasant farmer. Miss Lonsdale dozed over a copy of Corinne, to the hum of bees in a neighboring thicket. Alice and Detmold moved to a clump of walnut-trees, and rested at ease in their shade. Upon the face of a gray rock, scintillating with bits of mica, quaint lizards of dusty green darted up and down. Narcissus and euphorbia bloomed near by, and the azure myosotis in the hollows. The pensive figure of a shepherd with his staff, on the edge of the hill-side, at a distance, was projected against the sky.

The influence of the scene, the languor of the atmosphere, the sentiment of isolation in this far-away country, the consciousness of mutual regard, — and, on one side, of admiring devotion, — combined to draw the couple nearer together than ever before. The topics upon which they discoursed were not greatly different from usual, but more than ever did a subtLe tenderness pervade the accents and give the words a truer meaning. At times they paused and rested, With half shut eyes gazing off in sympathetic silence upon the prospect. Below lay the expanse of the azure lake; on the other side, the mountains. Out of the void of the serene sky beyond all twinkled at times, as if a signal from some moving speculum, a flash from some unseen ice peak of the Alps, Detmold’s straw hat, pushed carelessly upon the back of his head, encircled his face like an honest aureola. Flecks of light spattered through the overhanging foliage upon the muslin dress of Alice. The sprays of her floating hair took in its shining the aspect of a luminous mist.

Estates here are greatly subdivided, and the whole covered with the landmarks of more than two thousand years. There were owners down in the district below having each but a few square yards of lemon plantations, from which they drew a moderate livelihood.

“ Do you like this swarm of landmarks,” asked Detmold, “this endless succession of proprietorships, these incessant evidences of the occupation of the land from time immemorial ? ”

“Oh, yes,” said Alice; “it gives everything such a human interest. So much of our own country seems soulless on account of having no such associations. Our cultivated land has been redeemed from untrodden wildness so lately that it is almost as if it were only just created,’ ’

“ We have as lovely scenery,” said Detmold, “ but it is not yet furnished. These real antiquities cannot be put in at all, but probably in a hundred years, or less, our beautiful lakes will be as abundantly provided with villas and terraces, Cornice roads and lateen - sailed boats as this. Take Lake George, now; it is capable of almost anything.”

“ I like very much,” said Alice, “the keeping account of one’s ancestry, which is so easy here. The humblest person can trace his a long way back. I wish I could mine, even if there were nothing remarkable in any part of it. I do not mean in order to set up a coat-of-arms, and think one’s self better than others, but merely as a satisfaction. We only know that papa’s great-great-grandfather came from England and settled in Connecticut. There is no clue to anything back of that. He might as well have waded ashore out of the sea.”

“ Do you think very much more of one for an imposing descent, Miss Alice?”

Lying at her feet., free from scrutiny, he dared to essay so much of a test. Had her gaze been fixed upon him, he could not have propounded the inquiry.

“ I am afraid I used to much more than I do now,” she replied. “ I have been disappointed in the physical results of the system, as exhibited in its best examples, since coming abroad. Have you not also? And it does not appear that the results mentally are any better. There are dukes and duchesses, and counts and marquises, as homely as they can be, and anything but stylish. I supposed that there was an air about them, — an exclusive elegance entirely out of the question for people in general. There are really plenty of just as distinguished-looking persons on the street at Lakeport every day. Still,” she continued, “I would like to have a tall family tree to climb up. What is a great - great - grandfather? Mine was something in the Revolution; the next was college president, the next was a merchant, and then my father, who is a merchant too. That is all there is of us. It is very provoking.”

“ But consider all the people who have not even a grandfather, Miss Alice,” said Detmold, “ and how well they get along. The self-made man is our cornerstone. We like him so well that we do not care very much who his father was,”

“ Of course not,” assented Alice. “ I am sure I never think of it —very much.”

“ Still, even you may perhaps look at him a little differently from what men do. Women, if you will allow me to say so, perpetuate most of the snobbishness in the world. They do not mix enough with all sorts of people to find out what fine character often lies hidden under appearances that society could not think of tolerating. And they are not, like us, — as I am happy to say,— engaged in a general scramble for money, skill in the attainment of which entitles its possessor to respect, no matter who he is.”

“ There is only one circumstance in the way of ancestry which I am disposed to make an obstacle of,” said Alice, “ and the feeling is more involuntary than intentional, — and that is crime. It runs in the blood; you can never tell when it will crop out again.”

A momentary vertigo seized upon Detmold; the brightness of the landscape was covered as if by smoke ; his heart struck heavily against his ribs.

“It is not that I think crime should continue to be punished in the innocent,” proceeded Alice. “ I feel sorry for such persons, but I cannot help being afraid of them. They have everything against them, and often turn out badly in spite of their own best exertions as well as those of others. You see it over and over again in children of bad parents, brought up with every redeeming influence.”

“ Have you known many instances? ” asked Detmold.

“Not in my own experience, but I have heard of a good many, and read of some. There is a county on the Hudson where of the descendants directly traced to a woman who was hanged for murder seventy years ago, two hundred have been actual criminals before the courts, and a large number of others idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, or paupers.”

There was a considerable pause. If this involuntary tendency to crime of which she spoke were true, was it not in his blood also? He resolved rather to be cut in pieces by inches, to die a thousand deaths, than ever to yield to it an instant. Yet at this very moment the guilt of his concealment, now that this judgment of the fatal character of the secret it covered was recorded, seemed a sensible lapsing into the gulf. But oh, could there not be this one exception? Detmold had determined to be happy. He wrestled strongly with himself and adhered doggedly to his purpose. By degrees the pall passed back from the landscape. Were they not in a far foreign country ? At least she knew nothing of his secret yet; nor was there any conceivable source from which she could learn it. The crickets chirped merrily about them. A small kid came and disported near them with a lovable awkwardness. He was followed and captured by a woman from the house, who called him opprobrious epithets, laughing good-humoredly the while and displaying excellent white teeth.

“ I like to think,” began Detmold, speaking again, “ that there is upon the whole a general average in this matter of lineage. Ancestry does not stop, you know, at Plymouth Rock, or the Norman Conquest. We have an intimate flesh-and-blood connection with history that we are apt to forget. Some ancestor of yours and mine may have fought against the Danish invaders with King Alfred, or been one of the piratical Danes himself. The ancestor of this one may have come to Britain with the Romans or with Phœnician traders. He may have been a Druid, and offered human sacrifices.”

“ Yours may, but I shall never admit that mine did,” said the young lady, with a positive air.

“ I withdraw the preposterous supposition,” said Detmold. “ We will say mine, only; and then,” he continued, " his forefathers in the Orient probably bowed down ' to Nebo, Bel, and all the powers divine.’ Further back yet, there was one a fire-worshiper. And so you get back to Gog and Magog, into the chaos of history. It is singular to remember that all the time there was a man taking part who was the father of your father’s father’s father’s and - so - forth father in a direct line of descent. And then at last you emerge out of chaos into the pure freshness of the primeval Paradise.”

“It makes one feel quite cosmopolitan,” remarked Alice. “ Which side do you suppose your ancestor was on in the siege of Troy or the battle of Salamis? ”

“I wish we knew. But now as to the average I spoke of,” he continued: “ does it not seem fair to suppose that in these long lines of descent there has been an average that puts us all substantially upon the same footing? There has probably been about the same number of masters and slaves, mistresses and maids, patricians and plebeians, — high and low alternations of fortune, — among the ancestors of each of us. If for one series of generations they followed the plow, scrubbed the pot, and dressed in homespun, most likely for as many more, at some other time, they wore silk and velvet, followed the chase, abused the plow-boy, boxed the maid, and talked of Shakespeare and the musical glasses.”

“ I like your theory,” said Alice, “especially the fire - worshiper. Perhaps there is just a spark of his reverential communion with the sun in our enjoyment of its delightful brightness this very moment.”

“ I think it applies just as reasonably in the particular of crimes. As every line of descent has its aristocrats and democrats, its wealth and poverty, it doubtless has its saints and sinners, to make a series of offsets and strike an even balance. There is no way of proving my theory, but I do not take the less comfort in it on that account. In this way, too, the wheel of fortune, of which we were speaking the other day, may make a complete round. No one individual can experience all phases of life and circumstances, but his line of descent must come pretty near it. ”

“ It is a very good theory,” said Alice, when he had finished speaking. “I think I shall adopt it.”

“ It is a fancy, a speculation, — not a theory,” said Detmold.

“ We are better friends than we used to be, Miss Alice; do you not think so? ” he said, hesitatingly, after a pause.

“ Why? because I accept your theory, or speculation, or whatever you call it? No, I think we quarrel a great deal.”

“ I am sure I can think of nothing we have quarreled about for a long time, — nothing since the Romeo and Juliet matter, and in that you ” —

“ No, I think it was you,” said she.

“ You were excessively harsh in your judgment of the sentiment of the piece. After what had passed so — so lately, I could not help thinking that it was meant ’ ’ —

While he hesitated, she went on as though he had finished: “ I only meant to be severe upon such absurd sentiment as theirs was, which sprang up in a minute, without any basis. I do not understand it.”

“ Then you would have had more consideration if it had been represented as the growth of years, — based upon coincidence of tastes, and admiration for character and soul as well as personal beauty ? ’ ’

“ I should have said that that was quite a different matter.”

They talked on, coming ever nearer to the subject which was calling in the heart of Detmold for utterance. Still, the memory of his former experience and the dread that her amiability might after all be only a manifestation of implicit trust, which it would he cruel to shock, kept it timorously back. Some other time, some other place, would present itself; he would have fuller indications. But he knew that she was going away from Verona in a few brief days, and none could say when or under what circumstances they should meet again. What time, what place, so favorable as this!

This glowing afternoon upon the hillside, by the gray rock, in sight of the lake and the herdsman with his goats, was as perfect as an idyl of Theocritus. Why could it not always have lasted! How without a sigh Detmold would have abandoned forever that remote, uneasy world behind him, to pasture here his flocks and tenant the broken farm-house with a shepherdess sweeter than the honey of Bormio!

The conversation was soft and poetic; it would have taken little to versify it. Like Daphnis and Chloe they took up in turn the strains of beauty, love, and life’s aspirations, and all seemed about to mingle at the close in an exquisite harmony. Alice, who had something of a Thackerayan repugnance to the demonstrative expression of feeling, however genuine, did not entirely relinquish her tone of banter. She said flippant and mocking things, but they were cynical only in form. Some unfettered emanation from a true and generous heart belied them, even as they were spoken.

One hand was thrown carelessly beside her, and lay like a lily upon the grass. Detmold had engraved an imaginary monogram with a pencil upon the stone of a turquoise ring she wore, without occasioning her to withdraw it. Then he took the tip of one of the small fingers and drew the palm into his. Still she did not oppose; she was looking off at the landscape, as if in a sweet reverie, with her head averted. He raised the hand to his lips. How different this from the despairing touch of their last parting, which had appeared to seal the decree of an eternal separation! He saw a brighter color steal into her cheek. It was not a flush of resentment, but rather of yielding and tenderness. His long pent-up emotion was upon the point of utterance; words of passionate affection already trembled upon his lips.

But it was fated that no word should then be spoken. Miss Lonsdale, tired of her arbor, where she had indeed taken a broken nap, with her head pillowed upon the table, came towards them at this moment, holding Corinne open in her hand. She read to them some passages upon which she had reflections to offer. A little discussion of the work was entered upon. Miss Lonsdale liked it for its elevation of sentiment and unexceptionable tone concerning religion; Detmold for its descriptions of nature and art. Alice admitted that by reason of having had it as a text-book in her younger days she had conceived a prejudice against it which she could not overcome; Lord Nelvil with his endless moping seemed very stupid, and Corinnc much too gifted in bizarre accomplishments.

Mr. Starfield came to notify them that if it was intended to have another lunch from what remained in the hamper it was time to prepare it, as the horses must soon be put to.

To include as much variety as possible they were to return by another route. The heat outside of the protecting shade was still considerable, and it was late before they left the agreeable spot. The long shadows of poplar, elm, and myrtle stretched across the greensward. A wreath of smoke curled from the farmhouse chimney. Slight purple mists began to fill the hollows of the rounded masses of foliage on the slope below. The flocks came tinkling down the mountain road.

XII.

THE FETE.

Detmold sought an opportunity to renew the interrupted conversation on the hill-side at Torri. He could not allow Alice to go away without finally learning his fate. Who knew when they should meet again, or what changes might be effected by absence? The fête at the Grazzini palace was at hand, and be hoped much from the possibilities it offered. Could he now reasonably doubt what the result was going to be? She had been so yielding and gracious on that memorable afternoon. When the thought of his deception intruded upon his uneasy conscience he tried to dismiss it with a reprimand. Was he not himself innocent? he had not merited disgrace. If he wronged this dear girl by his concealment, he would atone for it by the achievements of a limitless affection and a tireless ambition.

Ardent as he was, he did not escape some moments of misgiving of a different kind, natural to the time. Was he ready, after all, to put the entrancing dream in which he was immersed to the test of reality? Might there not come a period even with Alice when, having lived too long the same life and thought the same thoughts, all piquancy of association would be lost and a tame commonplaceness be arrived at? His untrammeled freedom, even with its moodiness, was dear to him; the idea of conventional family routine, regular hours, slippers, an equable temperature, was slightly suffocating.

Castelbarco also was looking forward to the fête, as an occasion both to afford him the opportunity he had been so anxiously seeking, and to impress Alice with an extraordinary idea of the dignity of his house.

The affections of the two young men were similar, yet unlike. It could hardly be said that one was more genuine and all-pervading than the other. With Detmold it had been the steady growth of years; into the more fusible nature of Castelbarco, seemingly long prepared by the circumstances of his condition, it had flashed with sudden intensity ; but it possessed both equally. There was this difference, that Detmold looked up to Alice with reverence, as a superior being, —in social station as in all other respects; while Castelbarco, who in contracting such a marriage would have gone counter to the wishes of his ambitious mother, and stepped a little down from his fancied gentility, felt in his purpose a trace of condescension. Yet how worthy was not the beautiful American of even a thousand - fold greater sacrifices! His pride in her companionship would have been scarcely less than Detmold’s.

There was a corresponding difference in the states of mind with which the two looked forward to the coming interview. Detmold, with all the sweet omens he possessed, did not cherish absolute certainty; Castelbarco, with little in his favor but his own consciousness of merit, was serenely confident. As between the two, Detmold, who knew so well the pain of hopeless love, had for Castelbarco nothing but sympathy; while the latter entertained towards his old school-mate, as he now did towards every one much favored with the society of Alice, an uneasy feeling of jealousy, which would quickly have become hatred had he suspected the truth as it really was.

The Grazzini palace, during the declining fortunes of the family, had undergone many changes and abasements. The present occupant, though perhaps able to do so, had not yet repaired them. Two of the wings were sequestrated to common uses. The grand staircase was closed up, and the space utilized in some other way. The stair-case by which one mounted at present was of flag-stones four feet in width, and provided with an iron hand-rail. On the evening of the fête a rich carpet was thrown down upon it, to shield from its harshness the rich material of sweeping robes and rosetted boots of satin and kid.

The principal saloon was a noble apartment, lighted by tapers in a chandelier of crystal. The floor, of polished parquetry bordered with a mosaic of tiles, gave back reflections. The walls were hung with failed yellow satin. The paneled ceiling, of dark wood and gilded moldings, contained frescoes of angels and prophets around a main composition showing a sea-fight of one of the old Grazzinis with the Turks. There were frequent, portraits and other paintings along the walls, and, disposed between them, oval mirrors with candles in sconces, carved chairs, and cabinets holding china and bronzes. At the upper end, let into the wall and surrounded by an ancient frame of beaten copper, was a pier - glass of peculiar elegance. Its depths were filled with the rich, dark tones of the apartment, across which now glided, with increasing frequency, the sheen of silken costumes, merging into a soft jumble of moving color. The centre of the room was occupied by two circular divans. Along the sides were dispersed chairs and fauteuils of modern fashion, with coverings of blue and white chintz. At one side a row of windows opened upon balconies. The air at intervals lifted the curtains of silk, which swelled and rustled together as though engaged in some mysterious converse of their own.

The society encountered by our friends at the Grazzini palace was not far from the best the city afforded. There were titles of nobility: a marchesa and a baroness, and a Spanish count and countess who had been in Mexico with Maximilian. The musical termination of the names announced by the tall footmen was in itself a pleasure, — Bianehi, Carpasso, Cavalcanti, Ruzzanti. The assembly differed less from American social gatherings they knew than might have been the case in some localities of a less pronounced commercial character. Neither in Lombardy nor elsewhere does a nobility which has never looked upon the bearing of arms as the only worthy occupation so exclusively as some others abstain entirely from relations to manufactures and trade. An heiress of New York has even married a prince who kept the books of a bank.

There were handsome, athletic officers of the garrison, and two or three courtly ecclesiastics. The young society men, with opera hats under their arms, bent over the ladies on the divans, and addressed to them conventional drawingroom talk not differing greatly from that of London or New York.

Married ladies, in low dresses, were most numerous. They talked with vivacity, involving many small frowns, poutings, and elevations of very flexible brows. Their, walk was the perfection of grace. Hyson found them very attractive, and gave himself up to them with characteristic unreserve.

The young Italian gentlemen, particularly the proverbially susceptible soldiers, were equally impressed with Alice. When presented they bowed with extreme elegance, but then, owing to linguistic deficiencies on both sides, the acquaintance could progress little farther and was largely confined to somewhat inane smiling. With the Signora Grazzini and her father at her side, she held a kind of small court, and laughed at and with her admirers. Their helplessness made her look upon them — gigantic as they were — as well-meaning, harmless creatures, whom it was safe to patronize and almost to caress a little.

The elder Castelbarco passed hither and thither, inciting merriment. Detmold stood somewhat aloof, taking in the feast of color and motion, watching the gayety of Alice with anxious twinges, and waiting for the moment that should enable him to separate her from the throng. He listened to the collision of the busy voices, and found in it something like the babbling of water, the stir of a corn-field or of forest leaves, — as though even multitudes of conventional sounds, when combining, must run into the one great voice of nature.

There are moments in such an assembly when, even to the cynic, all is exquisite. The body, wrapped only in the most delicate fabrics, — tissues of silk, linen, and gold, — seems as free from grossness as themselves. Young girls, in toilettes of gauze that envelop them dreamily, throw themselves into fauteuils with abandon. The air is heavy with odor of sandal-wood; the music plays with cloying sweetness. At times all seems to move in a rhythmical procession, the faces pensive, the silken garments flowing or wound about the limbs in long folds. Again, it is sinuous and irregular, with eddies; and again, the music crashes high, and it is a tossing chaos crested with a pinkish foam of lace and jewels. There are only smiles, slight pressures, flying contours, perfumes; it might be a revel of immortals in the asphodel meads.

Hyson joined him.

“Fancy,” said he, “our taking part in a ball in a palace at Verona. There is no end to this theatrical business. I feel as if we ought to be in dominos, like Romeo and his friend at the masque of the Capulets. Old Castelbarco, there, makes a very tolerable Capulet. See him stir things up. ‘What, ho! more lights! bid the musicians play! How long is ’t now, good cousin Capulet, since you and I were in a mask ? ’ ”

But at this moment the hospitable entertainer came towards them, and led him away, to give him the advantage of the acquaintance of a colonel of engineers of large experience on the royal works of irrigation. Then he returned to present Detmold to the Signora Spinello and her daughter, an heiress lately come back from a convent at Paris.

The Signorina Spinello was a perfect blonde, with eyes as blue as corn-flowers. Eyebrows of a dark shade and a slight habit of wrinkling the forehead petulantly gave piquancy to a face that would otherwise have been too placid. She walked with Detmold, and they paused a moment to comment on the curious tall pier-glass.

“ It mirrors a fine couple,” said the host pleasantly, passing behind them.

“ Doubtless,” said Detmold; “ hut our attention was just now given to the mirror itself; it is very handsome.”

“ It is old, and there are traditions connected with it. My wife could tell you what they are, if you cared to know; as for me, I make no account of such things. The breaking of it would be a very bad sign for our house, I believe, as she interprets it.”

“ Or for any other, I should think,” said Detmold; “ it would cost a mint of money to replace it, if indeed it could be replaced at all.”

His eyes wandered involuntarily at every moment after Alice, and he would have been glad to be released. All at once he saw her upon the arm of Castelbarco, his rival, whose purpose to-night might very well be similar to his own. They turned once or twice, and were lost to sight. They had passed out upon the balcony of a window opening by the pier-glass, and near the door that led into a smaller room, where there were cards for those who did not care to dance.

In a robe of silk of a pale golden tint, with lace upon her shoulders, her hair bound in a classic knot, there was no figure so princess-like as that of Alice. A gold ornament at the neck fastened a ruff of lace into which her round chin went in and out sweetly with the movements of her head.

Castelbareo would have brought her a chair to the balcony, but she declined, saying that it would be less refreshing to sit than to stand, as the air would he cut off by the balustrade. She had not been able to offer an excuse — as she would have been glad to do — that would not have offended him, when he proposed to her to seek a moment’s respite from the heat of the rooms. Although she had no suspicion of what was to take place, she was uneasy, and had formed the intention to remain the briefest possible moment.

The young man leaned against the window architrave. Alice, with one hand drooping over the stone railing, looked down into the well-like street.

“Miss Starfield has enjoyed her stay in Verona, I hope? ” he began.

“ Oh, very much.”

“ Will she ever come to Verona again ? ”

“ I fear there is little hope of it. We sail for home in the autumn, and intend to spend most of the summer in Switzerland. I do not suppose papa could be induced to cross the ocean again, or to allow us to come without him, now that he knows what it is.”

“ Then I shall never see you again?”

All this was with a decided appearance of being preliminary to something.

“ You can come to America again, at some time, can you not? But it is chilly; had we not better go in? ”

“ I can go to America, yes,” said he, disregarding her suggestion, in his preoccupation; “but — it is long and far. Who knows what may happen? There is another way. I have long sought an occasion to beg you, to implore you. as I do now, to remain here — with me. I love you, Miss Alice, and I have done so since a child. It is not a little while I know you; it is half a life-time. Even in my school-days was I charmed; you alone made them endurable. I planned then for the future, and you were always the centre of my plans, though you did not know it. When you came here so happily to our Verona, my passion was renewed, —with all the strength, now, of manhood, and all the earnestness of our race. I could throw myself at your feet, to adore you. I cannot bear to have you ever go away. I have fortune, I have ancestry. You shall be so happy here that you will not miss America. Besides, do I not know the ways of your country? I will bend myself to them. You shall have here, if it please you, another America.”

He stood facing her, with his hands clasped together. If His manner was vehement and supplicatory, yet gallant and respectfully confident. As Alice did not reply for a moment,, and still looked down into the street, he endeavored t.o steal his arm gently about her waist, and to take in his the hand extended upon the balustrade. She avoided the caress by a slow, easy drawing back.

When this supreme instant arrives to those who have known and understood each other, the momentous question seems to have been asked and answered long before. There is no crisis; there is only the fusing together of two natures yielding to attractions that accomplish their appointed end. But when a woman is addressed by one with whom she is little familiar, and upon whom her thoughts have never fondly rested, an element of gratuitous offense enters into his proposal. Unconscious, from any responsive feeling, of the depth of passionate sentiment she may have aroused in him, she finds it unnecessary and uncalled for. The lover appears as a strange, alarming person. His ardor has a ferocious aspect. He is well enough as a part of the furniture of society, but why should he wish to touch her, to lavish expressions of endearment upon her, when she takes not the slightest interest in him?

“ It is very painful to me to hear this,” said Alice, “because I can say nothing favorable in reply. You do me a great honor, but I — am sure our acquaintance does not warrant this. I could not think of it. I—hardly know you. I hope you will not pursue the subject. It would be useless. We may be friends, but nothing more.”

She listened with considerable calmness to some further arguments, and her tone continued to be kindly but decided. She was much more careful of him than of Detmold at Paris, — perhaps because of valuable self-possession acquired in that very interview; perhaps because it is not uncommon to do worst when we would appear at the best advantage, and best when the approbation to be gained is entirely immaterial; and because this was something so wholly out of the question that no trace of doubt embarrassed her decision.

“ Do not be so cruel, Miss Alice!” he still appealed.

“ I am not cruel. It is you who are cruel. You are making me very uncomfortable. I must go and rejoin my father. It is cold here; ” and she made a movement to go in.

“ There is some other,” said Castelbarco, behind her.

She did not reply, but her eye kindled a little, as if at a piece of impertinence.

“ Oh, yes, there is some other,” he repeated. “ Have I not eyes? have I not seen ? The Signor Detmold is agreeable to the Signorina Starfield; from him she could easily have listened to such talk.”

In a little outburst of temper, somewhat below her usual plane of dignity, Alice turned half about, and said, “If there is another, as you say, and you know it, why do you pursue me? You have forgotten your good breeding, sir.”

Smarting with this deserved reproach, and with jealousy and disappointment, he cried, in uncontrollable rage, “ Then I say you shall not be his, either,— this moping half-artist, this — yes, I say it — this jail-bird! Do you hear? His father was a convicted felon, and he himself was born in prison. Now, marry him, if you will, instead of an honorable Italian gentleman!”

“Honorable? O Heaven! And you pretended to be Detmold’s friend. It is a base calumny.”

“ But if it were true? ”

“If it were true I might never marry — I might — it is immaterial — but I should not the less regard you with utter contempt.”

She stepped into the saloon, and Castelbarco followed her. The rich mirror showed his face working with passion, and hers pale and scornful. But sadder than either it showed also that of Detmold, who leaned against the edge of the window from which they had just emerged, — passing him unnoted, —with a countenance of extreme and pitiable despair. Searching for Alice he had come from the card-room, and stood by the entrance to the balcony at the moment that Castelbarco, in a distinctly audible hiss, had made the fatal announcement.

Out of this bright scene of rejoicing, in the far country where all seemed impregnable security, upon the very verge of I he consummation of his hopes, the dark shadow of his early life swept down and destroyed him. It was as if its vague, almost dissipated filaments had been forged into a weapon of steel, with which he had been stricken in the midst of the festival. The dear light that promised to radiate enduring happiness into his life was forever blotted out.

At sight of Detmold, Castelbarco was recalled as from a trance of madness. He had not deliberately planned this revelation; he had hardly, even in the heat of his passion, intended it. He had only, at some former time, dallied with it, as a speculative possibility; as something — not of course for a moment to he thought of — which might be used if any one had a motive for doing so, to Detmold’s serious injury. He had heard the story at school as a piece of idle gossip. For his own part, he cared nothing about it: the circumstances were vague, possibly untrue; even if true, it was all thousands of miles remote, and could in no way affect him; and Detmold was a very good fellow, whom he respected, and who had been his friend in those very school-days. But the evil he had allowed himself to contemplate had executed itself in his rage, almost in spite of him. The view of Detmold’s distress moved him deeply.

“My God!” said he, “what have I done! Miss Alice—Detmold—I deny everything. I know nothing of it. It is not true. ”

Detmold turned feebly to depart.

“Do not go away, Mr. Detmold,” said Alice, with mingled sympathy and indignation; “I do not believe a word of it.”

“I must go,” said Detmold. “ It is true ! ’ ’

The glance of Alice lingered painfully upon his face for an instant. Then her features contracted coldly.

At this moment an extraordinary thing happened. The great Venetian glass, in the depths of which the joyless trio saw their pain reflected, lapsed from its frame in fragments of a crystalline structure. It fell about them as if in a shower of glittering tears. The guests shrank back in alarm, and the revelry ceased.

There are said to be voices so radically jarring when directed by malignity, or it may be so intensely vibratory in supreme emotion of any kind, as to destroy the natural cohesion of particles and cause them to fall asunder. If sensibility to such a force could be supposed to inhere in this mirror of Venice, perhaps it was an extension of the quality which it was able to give to certain of its drinking-glasses to make them shatter at the contact of poison.

It is not to be believed that either the malicious rage of Castelbarco or the anguish of Detmold reached to this fabulous point. It is more likely that the mirror was broken by some slow settling of the walls in which it was fixed, causing unequal strains and pressures, accelerated by the unusual weight of the merry-making company.

At the bottom of the space left vacant by its fall was a small inscription, which, dimly remembered, doubtless furnished the basis to the tradition mentioned by the senior Castelbarco. Upon being deciphered it read: —

The guests drew a cordon about the scene of the catastrophe. The superstition of the ill fortune of a circumstance of this kind is generally prevalent, and the matter was taken gravely. The countenances of the household were deeply troubled. The host caused a piece of tapestry to be hung over the blank wall, and devoted himself ruefully to restoring the suspended festivities. Hyson picked up some of the fragments, and eyed them curiously, and then the inscription.

“ A fine murdering old ancestor, truly,” saiil he, turning to Alice, who now leaned upon her father’s arm, “ to leave such a sword of Damocles hanging, — such a dynamite machine stowed away in the wall to blow up the peace of mind of his descendants. What an old cutthroat he must have been! ”

“It is no laughing matter,” said the young officer in blue and silver whom he had met at the Café Dante with Antonio on the evening of his arrival. “ Just now I would rather be a Benotti as I am than a Castelbarco or a Grazzini, although they could burns all up, and are an older family by a couple of centuries. I have seen too much of those omens, — we Italians are especially favored. Thev almost always turn out badly. If this accident has no further ill effects, it will at least depress our friend Antonio nobody knows how long. He is too impressionable. I am sorry for the poor boy. ’ ’

Tbe music began again to play enchanting waltzes; the gayety recommenced. But it was at best only a faint reflection of its former self; the accident continued to be the principal topic of conversation. “ It is only to the mother’s side, the Grazzini,” said some, “ that the omen can apply; probably it will come to nothing.” But when they departed, it was evident that it had made upon all no ordinary impression.

W. H. Bishop.