forts to extract
a perfectly straight string from it, and had tried it again, to our
mortification it again broke; but at last--at last we found some good
coils; the strings began to hold, and gradually the discordant jangling
gave place to pure melodious chords. "Ha! it will go! it will go! The
instrument is getting in tune!" exclaimed the Baroness, looking at me
with her lovely smile. How quickly did this common interest banish all
the strangeness and shyness which the artificial manners of social
intercourse impose. A kind of confidential familiarity arose between
us, which, burning through me like an electric current, consumed the
timorous nervousness and constraint which had lain like ice upon my
heart. That peculiar mood of diffused melting sadness which is
engendered of such love as mine was had quite left me; and accordingly,
when the pianoforte was brought into something like tune, instead of
interpreting my deeper feelings in dreamy improvisations, as I had
intended, I began with those sweet and charming canzonets which have
reached us from the South. During this or the other _Senza di te_
(Without thee), or _Sentimi idol mio_ (Hear me, my darling), or _Almen
se nonpos'io_ (At least if I cannot), with numberless _Morir mi sentos_
(I feel I am dying), and _Addios_ (Farewell), and _O dios!_ (O
Heaven!), a brighter and brighter brilliancy shone in Seraphina's
eyes. She had seated herself close beside me at the instrument; I felt
her breath fanning my cheek; and as she placed her arm behind me
on the chair-back, a white ribbon, getting disengaged from her
beautiful ball-dress, fell across my shoulder, where by my singing and
Seraphina's soft sighs it was kept in a continual flutter backwards and
forwards, like a true love-messenger. It is a wonder how I kept from
losing my head.

As I was running my fingers aimlessly over the keys, thinking of a new
song, Lady Adelheid, who had been sitting in one of the corners of the
room, ran across to us, and, kneeling down before the Baroness, begged
her, as she took both her hands and clasped them to her bosom, "Oh,
dear Baroness! darling Seraphina! now you must sing too." To this she
replied, "Whatever are you thinking about, Adelheid? How could I dream
of letting our virtuoso friend hear such poor singing as mine?" And she
looked so lovely, as, like a shy good child, she cast down her eyes and
blushed, timidly contending with the desire to sing. That I too added
my entrea