great clinking of glasses;
and the Englishman laughs and does his part too, and he has called for
six more schoppen of red.... But hush, now! Have we come out from the
din and the smoke to the cool evening air? What is that one hears afar
in the garden? Surely it is the little Kathchen and her mother singing
together, in beautiful harmony, the old, familiar, tender _Lorelei_! The
zither is a strange instrument--it speaks. And when Natalie Lind, coming
to this air, sung in a low contralto voice an only half-suggested
second, it seemed to those in the room that two women were singing--the
one with a voice low and rich and penetrating, the other voice clear and
sweet like the singing of a young girl. "_Die Luft ist kuhl und es
dunkelt, und ruhig fliesset der Rhein._" Was it, indeed, Kathchen and
her mother? Were they far away in the beautiful pine-land, with the
quiet evening shining red over the green woods, and darkness coming over
the pale streams in the hollows? When Natalie Lind ceased, the elder of
the two guests murmured to himself, "Wonderful! wonderful!" The other
did not speak at all.

She rested her hands for a moment on the table.

"Natalushka," said her father, "is that all?"

"I will not be called Natalushka, papa," said she; but again she bent
her hands over the silver strings.

And these brighter and gayer airs now--surely they are from the laughing
and light-hearted South? Have we not heard them under the cool shade of
the olive-trees, with the hot sun blazing on the garden-paths of the
Villa Reale; and the children playing; and the band busy with its
dancing _canzoni_, the gay notes drowning the murmur and plash of the
fountains near? Look now!--far beneath the gray shadow of the
olive-trees--the deep blue band of the sea; and there the double-sailed
barca, like a yellow butterfly hovering on the water; and there the
large martingallo, bound for the cloud-like island on the horizon. Are
they singing, then, as they speed over the glancing waves?... "_O dolce
Napoli! O suol beato!_" ... for what can they sing at all, as they leave
us, if they do not sing the pretty, tender, tinkling "Santa Lucia?"

"Venite all' agile
Barchetta mia!
Santa Lucia!
Santa Lucia!"

... The notes grow fainter and fainter. Are the tall maidens of Capri
already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer
to the shores they are leaving?... "_O dolce Napoli! O suol beato!_" ...
Fainter an