'think of the _noble_ Marchese Cicada, who simpers, _per Bacco_, that the
day is warm, and, _per dieci_, that I am lovelier than ever. Viva Luigi!
Viva O il pittore.'

"'My daughter,' said my grave, cautious mother, 'you are very young
yet--you do not understand these things. Good night, my child!'

"Fiora kissed her on the brow, and darted out of the room as if she were
really alive.

"When she had gone, Camillo smiled in his cold, calm way, and turning to
me, asked how I liked Luigi. I answered calmly, for I was of the same
blood as my brother. I did not disguise how much superior I thought him to
the youth I knew. I was very glad he had found such a friend, and hoped
the young man would come often to see us, and be very successful in his
profession.

"Then I was silent. I did not say that I had never lived until that
evening. I did not say how my heart was chilled, because, in leaving the
room, Luigi's last glance had not been for me, but for Fiora.

"Camillo did not praise him much. It was not his way; but I felt how
deeply he honored and loved him, and was rejoiced to think that necessity
would often bring us together; only my mother seemed serious, and I knew
what her gravity meant.

"'Do not be alarmed, dear mother,' I said to her, as I was leaving the
room.

"'My daughter,' she answered, with infinite pride, 'it is not possible. I
do not understand you. And you, my daughter, you do not understand
yourself nor the world."

"She was mistaken. Myself I did understand; the world I did not."

Again the Marchesa was silent and tears stood in her eyes. She was seventy
years old. Yes, but in love's calendar there is no December.

"The days passed, and we saw Luigi constantly. He was very busy, but found
plenty of time to be with us. His paintings were full of the same kind of
power I felt in his character. He never wearied of the gorgeous
atmospheric effects of which Titian and Paul, Giorgione and Tintoretto
were the old worshippers. They touched him sometimes with a voluptuous
melancholy in which he found a deeper inspiration.

"Every day I loved him more and more, and nobody suspected it. He did not,
because he was only glad to be in my society when he wanted criticism. He
liked me as an intelligent woman. He loved Fiora as a bewitching child.

"My mother watched us all, and soon saw there was nothing to fear. I
sought to be lively--to frequent society; for I knew if my health failed I
should be sent aw