inion and cease your tutoring,
once for all. This fault-finding, this warning vexes me. It spoils
my pleasure, it clouds my fancy. You are poisoning my happiness,
you--you... the croaker's voice is disagreeable to me."

Isabella sadly bent her head in silence. Ulrich approached her, saying:

"I do not wish to wound you, Belita; indeed, I do not. You mean well,
and you love me, a poor forsaken fellow; do you not, little girl?"

"Yes, Ulrich, and that is just why I have told you what I think. You are
rejoicing now in the thought of Italy...."

"Very, very much, unspeakably! There, too, I will remember you, and
what a dear, faithful, wise little creature you are. Let us part in
friendship, Isabella. Come with me; that would be the best way!"

The young girl flushed deeply, and made no answer except: "How gladly I
would!"

The words sounded so affectionate and came so tenderly from the inmost
depths of the heart, that they entered his soul. And while she spoke,
her eyes gazed so faithfully, lovingly, and yearningly into his, that he
saw nothing else. He read in them love, true, self-sacrificing love; not
like pretty Carmen's or that given by the ladies, who had thrown flowers
to him from their balconies. His heart swelled, and when he saw how
the flush on Isabella's dear face deepened under his answering glance,
unspeakable gratitude and joy seized upon him, and he could not help
clasping her in his arms and drawing her into his embrace.

She permitted it, and when she looked up at him and her soft scarlet
lips, from which gleamed two rows of dazzling white teeth, bloomed
temptingly near him, he bent his, he knew not how, towards them. They
kissed each other again and again, and Isabella flung her little hands
around his neck, for she could not reach him with her arms, and said
she had always loved him; he assured her in an agitated voice that he
believed it, and that there was no better, sweeter, brighter creature
on earth than she; only he forgot to say that he loved her. She gave, he
received, and it seemed to him natural.

She saw and felt nothing except him and her happiness; he was wholly
absorbed by the bliss of being loved and the sweetness of her kiss; so
neither noticed that Coello had opened the door and watched them for a
minute, with mingled wrath and pleasure, irresolutely shaking his head.

When the court-artist's deep voice exclaimed loudly:

"Why, why, these are strange doings!" they hastily start