ing at me as if he
thought me mad. Then he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. "Ah,"
he cried, "now I begin to understand. You traveled with two painters
called Guido and Lionardo?" When I assented, he sprang up and looked
me all over from head to foot. "I verily believe," he said "that
actually--Can you play the violin?" I struck the pocket of my coat so
that my fiddle gave forth a tone, and the painter went on: "There was
a Countess here lately from Germany, who made inquiries in every nook
and corner of Rome for those two painters and a young musician with a
fiddle." "A young Countess from Germany!" I cried in an ecstasy. "Was
the Porter with her?" "Ah, that I do not know," replied the painter.
"I saw her only once or twice at the house of one of her friends,
who does not live in the city. Do you know this face?" he went on,
suddenly lifting the covering from a large picture standing in a
corner. In an instant I felt as we do when in a dark room the shutters
are opened and the rising sun flashes in our eyes. It was--the lovely
Lady fair! She was standing in the garden, in a black velvet gown,
lifting her veil from her face with one hand, and looking abroad
over a distant and beautiful landscape. The longer I looked the more
vividly did it seem to be the castle garden, and the flowers and
boughs waved in the wind, while in the depths of green I could see
my little toll-house, and the high-road, and the Danube, and in the
distance the blue mountains.

"'Tis she! 'tis she!" I exclaimed at last, and, seizing my hat, I
ran out of the door and down the long staircase, while the astonished
painter called after me to come back toward evening, and we might
perhaps learn something more.

CHAPTER VIII

I ran in a great hurry through the city to present myself immediately
at the house, in the garden of which the Lady fair had been singing
yesterday evening. The streets were full of people; gentlemen and
ladies were enjoying the sunshine and exchanging greetings, elegant
coaches rolled past, and the bells in all the towers were summoning
to mass, making wondrous melody in the air above the heads of the
swarming crowd. I was intoxicated with delight, and with the hubbub,
and ran on in my joy until at last I had no idea where I was. It was
like enchantment; the quiet Square with the fountain, and the garden
and the house, seemed the fabric of a dream, which had vanished in the
clear light of day.

I could not make