on mine. See what follows.

_Petrarca._ Sigh not at it. Before we can see all that follows from
their intercession, we must join them again. But let me hear anything
in which they are concerned.

_Boccaccio._ I prayed; and my breast, after some few tears, grew
calmer. Yet sleep did not ensue until the break of morning, when the
dropping of soft rain on the leaves of the fig-tree at the window, and
the chirping of a little bird, to tell another there was shelter under
them, brought me repose and slumber. Scarcely had I closed my eyes, if
indeed time can be reckoned any more in sleep than in heaven, when my
Fiametta seemed to have led me into the meadow. You will see it below
you: turn away that branch: gently! gently! do not break it; for the
little bird sat there.

_Petrarca._ I think, Giovanni, I can divine the place. Although this
fig-tree, growing out of the wall between the cellar and us, is
fantastic enough in its branches, yet that other which I see yonder,
bent down and forced to crawl along the grass by the prepotency of the
young shapely walnut-tree, is much more so. It forms a seat, about a
cubit above the ground, level and long enough for several.

_Boccaccio._ Ha! you fancy it must be a favourite spot with me,
because of the two strong forked stakes wherewith it is propped and
supported!

_Petrarca._ Poets know the haunts of poets at first sight; and he who
loved Laura.... O Laura! did I say he who _loved_ thee? ... hath
whisperings where those feet would wander which have been restless
after Fiametta.

_Boccaccio._ It is true, my imagination has often conducted her
thither; but there in this chamber she appeared to me more visibly in
a dream.

'Thy prayers have been heard, O Giovanni,' said she.

I sprang to embrace her.

'Do not spill the water! Ah! you have spilt a part of it.'

I then observed in her hand a crystal vase. A few drops were sparkling
on the sides and running down the rim: a few were trickling from the
base and from the hand that held it.

'I must go down to the brook,' said she, 'and fill it again as it was
filled before.'

What a moment of agony was this to me! Could I be certain how long
might be her absence? She went: I was following: she made a sign for
me to turn back: I disobeyed her only an instant: yet my sense of
disobedience, increasing my feebleness and confusion, made me lose
sight of her. In the next moment she was again at my side, with the
cup quite full. I s