ectly perfect. Do you always have such
good times as this?"

"At home, yes," replied Lisetta, folding her hands and smiling. "We have
many a play-day on the bay of Naples." Then she roused herself: "Good
night, Signorina," she said, "keep your ears open."

Mae had barely reached her room when she appreciated Lisetta's last
words. She heard music in the street below. She raised her window; Eric
and Norman lifted the parlor window at the same moment, "Come in here,"
they cried. So in she ran, took a place between them, and they silently
listened to the maskers' serenade. The musicians sang at first the
gayest of tunes, but suddenly, by some subtile impulse, they changed to
quieter minor airs, and sang songs full of tears and passion and love
and tenderness. Then they silently turned to go. Norman Mann touched Mae
on the shoulder. He handed her a bunch of Carnival flowers. They were
Bero's, but she flung them unhesitatingly into the street, leaning far
out to watch the singers catch them and separate them in the moonlight.
They called out loud their thanks--their "Grazie, grazie," as sweet as
any lily just broken from its stem--and as they turned to go Mae saw
that each one was decked with a sprig from the bouquet, pulled through
his button-hole or the riband of his hat.

Only the tallest musician, who walked somewhat apart, carried his flower
tightly clasped in his hand, and now and again he raised it to his lips.
He probably dreamed over it that night, and played his dream out in
a gentle, wistful, minor adoration before the Madonna at the Quattro
Fontane the next morning.

O, the dreams and poems and songs without words that drop into our lives
from the sudden flash of stranger eyes, or the accidental touch of an
unknown hand, or the tender warmth of a swift smile! And if our eyes,
our touch, our smiles may only have floated off in like manner--as
dreams and poems and melody--to give added rhythm and harmony to other
lives.

Mae drew a long sigh, one of those delightful, contented sighs, with a
smile wrapped up in it. "I am glad you are so happy," said Norman Mann,
smiling down at her. When Norman spoke like that Mae felt only, O, so
very content. She quite forgot all grudges against him; she would have
liked just at that moment to have the world stand quite still. This was
very different from the ordinary Mae. Usually she longed that it might
go faster, and would put her pink and white ear quite close to the brown