hera_, how to wear the mask.

"Now the poor girl told this false friend that she was _enceinte_, and
that her lover would marry her; and the dear friend took her, as the
saying is, a trip to Volterra, during which a man was treated like a
prince and robbed or murdered at the end. For she insinuated that the
marriage might fail, and meantime she, the friend, would consult witches
and _fate_, who would get her out of her troubles and make all right as
sure as the Angelus. And the false friend went to the witches, but she
took them a lock of hair from the head of the lover to conjure away his
love and work harm. And knowing what the bridal dress would be, she made
herself one like it in every detail. And she so directed that the bride
on the wedding morning shut herself up in a room and see no one till she
should be sent for.

"The bride-to-be passed the morning in great anxiety, and while waiting
there received a large bouquet of orange-flowers as a gift from her
friend. And these she had perfumed with a witch-powder. And the bride
having inhaled the scent, fell into a deep sleep, or rather trance,
during which she was delivered of a babe, and knew nothing of it. Now
the people in the house hearing the child cry, ran into the room, and
some one ran to the bridegroom, who was just going to be married to the
false friend, who had by aid of the witches put on a face and a false
seeming, the very counterpart of her he loved.

"Then the unfortunate girl hearing that her betrothed was being married,
and maddened by shame and grief, rushed in her bride's dress through the
streets, and coming to the Bridge delle Grazie, the river being high,
threw herself into it and was drowned; still holding the bouquet of
orange-blossoms in her hand, she was carried on the torrent into death.

"Then the young man, who had discovered the cheat, and whose heart was
broken, said, 'As we were one in life, so we will be in death,' and threw
himself into the Arno from the same place whence she had plunged, and
like her was drowned. And the echo from the bridge is the sound of their
voices, or of hers. Perhaps she answers to the girls and he to the men;
anyhow they are always there, like the hymns in a church."

* * * * *

There is a special interest in the first two paragraphs of this story, as
indicating how a person who believes in spirits, and is quite ignorant of
natural philosophy, explains phenomen