; he
seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent
soul, and felt no more doubt or fear.

The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's manner vanished; she
became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion
with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have
felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her
experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden.
She talked now about matters as simple as the daylight or summer
clouds, and now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's
distant home, his friends, his mother, and his sisters--questions
indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and
forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed
out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its first
glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and
sky which were flung into its bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a
deep source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and
rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon
there gleamed across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he
should be walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon
his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom
he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful
attributes,--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a brother,
and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such reflections
were only momentary; the effect of her character was too real not to
make itself familiar at once.

In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now,
after many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered
fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of
glowing blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from it which Giovanni
recognized as identical with that which he had attributed to Beatrice's
breath, but incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell upon it,
Giovanni beheld her press her hand to her bosom as if her heart were
throbbing suddenly and painfully.

"For the first time in my life," murmured she, addressing the shrub, "I
had forgotten thee."

"I remember, signora," said Giovanni, "that you once promised to reward
me with one of these living gems for the bouquet which I had the happy
boldness to fling to your feet. Permit