him entranced.

With that sun-ray upon his face, Nobili seemed to her, at that moment,
more than mortal!

"Angel!" exclaimed Count Nobili, wrought up to sudden passion, "can
you doubt me?"

Before Enrica could reply, a snake, warmed by the hot sun, curled
upward from the terraced wall behind them, where it had basked, and
glided swiftly between them. Nobili's heel was on it; in an instant
he had crushed its head. But there between them lay the quivering
reptile, its speckled scales catching the light. Enrica shrieked and
started back.

"O God! what an evil omen!" She said no more, only her shifting color
and uneasy eyes told what she felt.

"An evil omen, love!" and Nobili brushed away the snake with his foot
into the underwood, and laughed. "Not so. It is an omen that I shall
crush all who would part us. That is how I read it."

Enrica shook her head. That snake crawling between them was the first
warning to her that she was still on earth. Till then it had seemed to
her that Nobili's presence must be like paradise. Now for a moment a
terrible doubt crept over her. Could happiness be sad? It must be so,
for now she could not tell whether she was sad or happy.

"Oh! do not say too much, dear Nobili," she repeated almost to
herself, "or--" Her voice dropped. She looked toward the spot where
the snake had fallen, and shuddered.

Nobili did not then reply, but, taking Enrica by the hand, he led her
up a flight of steps to a higher terrace, where a cypress avenue threw
long shadows across the marble pavement.

"You are mine," he whispered, "mine--as by a miracle!"

There was such rapture in his voice that heaven came down into her
heart, and every doubt was stilled.

At this moment Fra Pacifico's towering figure appeared ascending a
lower flight of steps toward them, coming from the house. He trod with
that firm, grand step churchmen have in common with actors--only the
stage upon which each treads is different. Behind Fra Pacifico was
the short, plump figure and the white hat of Cavaliere Trenta (a dwarf
beside the priest), his rosy face rosier than ever from the rapid
drive from Lucca. Trenta's kind eyes twinkled under his white eyebrows
as he spied Enrica above, standing side by side with Nobili. How
different the dear child looked from that last time he had seen her at
Lucca!

Enrica flew down the steps to meet him. She threw her arms round his
neck. Count Nobili followed her; he shook hands with the ca