hock of the first astonishment imposed there now
succeeded a burst of enthusiastic description, in which the three youths
vied with each other who should be most eloquent in praise. Her beauty,
her gracefulness, the witching fascination of her movements, the
enchanting captivation of her smile, were themes they never wearied of.
Nor was it till he had suffered the enthusiasm to take its course that
they would listen to his calm question,--

"Is she an actress?"

"She is the first _Ballarina_ of the world," cried one. "None ever did,
nor ever will, dance like her."

"They say she is a _Prima Donna_ too; but how could such excellence be
united in one creature?"

To their wild transports of praise Roland listened patiently, in the
hope that he might glean something of her story; but they knew nothing,
except that she was reputed to be a Sicilian, of a noble family, whose
passion for the stage had excited the darkest enmity of her relatives;
insomuch that it was said she was tracked from city to city by hired
assassins. She remained two days at Naples; she appeared but once at
Rome; in Genoa, though announced, she never came to the theatre. Such
were the extravagant tales, heightened by all the color of romantic
adventure,--how, at one time, she had escaped from a royal palace
by leaping into the sea,--how, at another, she had ridden through a
squadron of the Swiss Guard, sabre in hand, and got clean away from
Bologna, where a cardinal's letter had arrested her. Incidents the
strangest, the least probable, were recounted of her,--the high proffers
of marriage she had rejected; the alliances, even with royal blood,
she had refused. There was nothing, where her name figured, that seemed
impossible; hers was a destiny above all the rules that guide humbler
mortals.

Excellence, of whatever kind it be, has always this attraction,--that it
forms a standard by which men measure with each other their capacities
of enjoyment and their powers of appreciation. Roland's curiosity was
stimulated, therefore, to behold with his own eyes the wonder which had
excited these youthful heroics. He had long since ceased to be sanguine
on any subject; and he felt that he could sustain disappointment on
graver matters than this.

When they reached Venice, they found that city in a state of
enthusiastic excitement fully equal to their own. All the excesses into
which admiration for art can carry a people insensible to other emotions
than t