was gradually ceasing to care how things went, right or wrong.
At this moment, for example, he ought to have been thinking of the
situation he had created for himself, and resolving either to get out of
it before more harm was done, or to loyally fulfil his contract by
cultivating what affection for Miss Burgoyne was possible in the
circumstances. But he was not thinking of Miss Burgoyne at all. He was
thinking of Nina. He was thinking how hard it was that whenever his
fancy went in search of her--away to Malta, to Australia, to the United
States, as it might be--he could not hope to find a Nina whom he could
recognize. For she would be quite changed now. His imagination could not
picture to himself a Nina grown grave and sad-eyed, perhaps furtively
hiding her sorrow, fearing to encounter her friends. The Nina whom he
had always known was a light-hearted and laughing companion, eagerly
talkative, a smile on her parted lips, affection, kindliness ever
present in her shining, soft, dark eyes. Sometimes silent, too;
sometimes, again, singing a fragment of one of the old familiar
folk-songs of her youth. What was that one with the refrain, "_Io te
voglio bene assaje, e tu non pienz' a me_"?--

"La notta tutte dormeno,
E io che buo dormire!
Pensanno a Nenna mia
Mme sent' ascevoli.
Li quarte d' ora sonano
A uno, a doje e tre...
Io te voglio bene assaje,
E tu non pienz' a me!"

--Look, now, at this beautiful morning--the wide bay all of silver and
azure--Vesuvius sending its column of dusky smoke into the cloudless
sky--the little steamer churning up the clear as it starts away from the
quay. Ah, we have escaped from you, good Maestro Pandiani? there shall
be no grumblings and incessant repetitions to-day? no, nor odors of
onions coming up the narrow and dirty stairs: here is the open world,
all shining, and the sweet air blowing by, and Battista trying to sell
his useless canes, and the minstrels playing "Santa Lucia" most
sentimentally, as though they had never played it before. Whither, then,
Nina? To Castellamare or Sorrento, with their pink and yellow houses,
their terraces and gardens, their vine-smothered bowers, or rather to
the filmy island out yonder, that seems to move and tremble in the heat?
A couple of words in their own tongue suffice to silence the importunate
coral-girls; we climb the never-ending steps; behold, a cool and
gracious balcony, with windows looking