sionally
performing the more difficult passages himself, with many affected
gestures and self-approving waggings of his head, though his voice was
tuneless and harsh, and his ear anything but perfect.

'Of course,' he would say, 'it is only to give you an idea!'

The idea which he conveyed to Ortensia was that of a performing bear
eating strawberries; but she managed to keep her countenance, and not to
mimic him when she repeated the passage herself, profiting by his
instruction. It was the sort of music that rich amateurs used to write
by the ream, subject to the unacknowledged 'corrections' of a well-paid
professional; but the girl's sweet voice and genuine talent made the
airs sound passable, while her dreamy eyes and her caressing
pronunciation of the trivial words did the rest. It was mere talent, for
she hardly understood what she was saying, or singing, and she felt not
the least emotion, but she seemed to kiss the syllables as they passed
her lips.

The first bloom of young womanhood was already on her cheek, but the
frosts of childhood's morning had not melted from her maiden heart.

One day she was sitting just at the edge of the sunshine that poured
upon the eastern carpet from the high loggia. The room overlooked the
garden court of the palace, and the palms and young orange-trees, in
vast terra-cotta pots, laden with yellow fruit, had already been
brought out and set in their places, for it was the spring-time; the
sunshine fell slanting on the headless Ariadne, which was one of the
Senator's chief treasures of art, and the rays sparkled in the clear
water in the beautiful sarcophagus below. The lilies had already put out
young leaves too, that lay rocking on the ripples made by the tiny jet
of the fountain. There were long terra-cotta troughs full of white
violets, arranged as borders along the small paved paths, and red
flower-pots were set symmetrically in squares and rings and curves with
roses just blooming, and mignonette, and carnations that still lingered
in the bud. It was a formal little garden, but in the midst of its
regularity, neither in the centre, nor at any of the artificially
planned corners and curves, but out of line with all, one cypress reared
up its height. Even as Ortensia saw it, looking out from her loggia, it
overtopped the high wall that divided the garden from the canal and the
low houses on the other side, showing its dark plume sharp and clear
against the sunlit sky; but w