former acquaintance with his family, she
possest a strange power over him. But how did he start with amazement
when she suddenly cried out: "Crescentia!"

"For Heaven's sake!" he said, almost breathlessly: "do you know her?
can you see her? can you tell me anything about her?"

"What's the matter with you?" howled the old woman: "how can I help
knowing her, seeing she is my own daughter? Only look yourself how the
lazy slut has fallen asleep in her chair there, and lets the fire go
out and the soup get cold."

She took up the lamp and went to the chimney; but what were the
youth's feelings, when again for the second time on that day he beheld
his beloved, almost the same as in the evening? Her pale head lay
dropt back; her eyes were closed; every feature, even the dark
tresses, were those of his bride; just so were her little hands
folded, and just so did she too clasp a crucifix between them. Her
white dress helpt to increase the illusion; the flowers alone were
wanting; but the dusk wove something like wreaths of dark heavy
foliage around her hair.

"She is dead!" sighed Antonio gazing fixedly upon her.

"Sluggish is she, the lazy jade," said the old woman, and shook the
fair slumberer awake: "she can do nothing but pray and sleep, the
useless baggage."

Crescentia roused herself, and her confusion still hightened her
beauty. Antonio felt on the brink of madness at thus again seeing
before him one whom he had yet lost for ever.

"Old witch!" he cried out vehemently: "where am I? and what forms art
thou bringing before my wandering senses? Speak, who is this lovely
being? Crescentia, art thou alive again? Dost thou still acknowledge
me as thine own! How camest thou hither?"

"Holla! my young prince," screamed the old woman; "you are gabbling
away there, as though you had quite lost your little bit of an
understanding. Is the storm beating about inside of your pate? has the
lightning perchance singed your brains? She is my daughter, and always
has been so."

"I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I
was never in the city."

"Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have
to give you."

The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old
woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent
Florentine wine.

Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia;
and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore