dows and make a light.

Aurora watched the dark blue velvet sky over Bellosguardo, and thought.

A tinkling of mandolins, a thrumming of guitars, informed her of
street-singers stationed under her windows. A tenor voice rose in the
song she was so fond of, _La Luna Nova_, mingling at the end of the
verse with other male voices that repeated the second half of it. It
sounded infinitely sweet out in the warm spring night.

After _La Luna Nova_ they sang _Fra i rami_, _fulgida_,
and _Vedi_, _che bianca Luna_, and _Dormi pure_, all
things she particularly liked. The voices struck her as being nearer
than the garden railing; she thought the singers must have found the
carriage gate open and slipped in without noise. She bent forth a
little, and as she could not see them imagined them standing among the
shrubs. She propped her elbows on the window-rail and listened, grateful
for this bath of sweetness to her spirit after the day's profound ennui.

Estelle came softly into the dark room and joined her; they leaned side
by side.

_Mi sono innamorato d'una stella_, _Sognai_, _Io
t'amero_, one sweet and sentimental song succeeded the other.

Clotilde had entered too, on tiptoe, and stood listening, just behind
the others.

"It is a serenade," she whispered. "It is a compliment."

A serenade!... Aurora thrilled with a pleasant surmise. There was only
one person in Florence of whom she could conceive as offering her the
compliment of a serenade. She listened with a new keenness of pleasure.

After the concert had prolonged itself through some dozen pieces--

"You must invite them to enter," whispered Clotilde, presumably versed
in the ceremonial of such adventures, "and offer them something for
their tired throats, a little wine...."

"Oh, you think we ought...?"

"But yes, it would be courtesy."

"Go you, then, Clotilde, and show them in and order up the wine. We'll
be down in a minute."

As they entered the dining-room, Clotilde burst into a peal of delighted
laughter at the well-managed surprise, while Italo hastened forward to
take Aurora's hand and bow over it half way to the floor.

It was within Aurora's breast as if in the dark one had clasped as she
thought a sweetheart, to find when the light came that her arms were
entwined around the dancing-master, or the tailor. But only for an
instant. She was really touched and charmed. She became more and more
eloquent in expressing delight.

The singers were pr