ful came again to the
girl's face. "Messer Dante, Messer Dante," she said, "how can you ask,
and how can I answer? A raw youth and a green girl do not make the world
between them, nor change the world's laws, nor the laws of this little
city, nor the laws of my father in my father's house. And my father's
law is like a hand upon my lips, forbidding them to speak, and like a
hand upon my heart, forbidding it to beat."

Dante protested very vehemently, in all the zeal and freshness of his
youth. "The law of Love is greater than all other laws. The strength of
Love is stronger than all strength. The sword of Love is stronger than
the archangel's sword, and conquers all enemies."

Beatrice shook her head at her lover's fury, and her eyes shone very
brightly in the moonlight. "Oh, Dante! Dante!" she said, softly, "if
this were indeed so, the world would be an easier world for lovers. If
you were to tell my father what you have told me, or if I were to tell
my father what I have told you, he would twit us for a pair of silly
children, and take good heed that we were kept apart. If you were to ask
my father for me, he would deny you, and laugh while he denied; for my
father is a proud man, and one that loves wealth and power very greatly,
and will not give his child save where wealth and power abide. If he
were to come upon us here, now, where we talk alone in the moonlight, he
would raise his hand to slay you, and he has not a neighbor nor a friend
but would say he did right. You know all this, even as I know it. Why,
then, do you ask me to give what I cannot give?"

She was very calm and sad as she spoke, and the truth that was in her
mournful words was not to be denied by Dante. But all the ardors of his
being were spurred by his consciousness that he had made known his love
for her, and that she, surely, had scarcely done less than confess her
love for him, and while such sweet happenings hallowed the world, it did
not seem to the poet possible that any mortal power could come between
them. And in this confidence he addressed his beloved again, all on
fire.

"Dear woman," he urged, "not all the fathers in Florence can bind our
spirits. I love you now, I shall love you while I live--in hunger and
thirst, in feasting and singing, in the church and in the street, in
sorrow and in joy, in cross or success. My life and every great and
little thing within my life is sanctified to a sacrament by my love for
you. Cannot your s