caro mio; it is not nine o'clock."

"How far do you think I ought to go, Nino?" I inquired. To tell the
truth, the idea of going up the Serra alone was not so attractive in
the evening as it had been in the morning light. I thought it would be
very dark among those trees, and I had still a great deal of money
sewn between my waistcoats.

"Oh, you need not go so very far," said Nino. "Three or four miles
from the town will be enough. I will wait in the street below, after
eleven."

We sat in silence for some time afterwards, and if I was thinking of
the gloomy ride before me, I am sure that Nino was thinking of Hedwig.
Poor fellow! I dare say he was anxious enough to see her, after being
away for two months, and spending so many hours almost within her
reach. He sat low in his chair, and the dismal rays of the solitary
tallow candle cast deep shadows on his thoughtful face. Weary,
perhaps, with waiting and with long travel, yet not sad, but very
hopeful he looked. No fatigue could destroy the strong, manly
expression of his features, and even in that squalid room, by the
miserable light, dressed in his plain gray clothes, he was still the
man of success, who could hold thousands in the suspense of listening
to his slightest utterance. Nino is a wonderful man, and I am
convinced that there is more in him than music, which is well enough
when one can be as great as he, but is not all the world holds. I am
sure that massive head of his was not hammered so square and broad by
the great hands that forge the thunderbolts of nations, merely that he
should be a tenor and an actor, and give pleasure to his fellow-men. I
see there the power and the strength of a broader mastery than that
which bends the ears of a theatre audience. One day we may see it. It
needs the fire of hot times to fuse the elements of greatness in the
crucible of revolution. There is not such another head in all Italy as
Nino's that I have ever seen, and I have seen the best in Rome. He
looked so grand, as he sat there, thinking over the future. I am not
praising his face for its beauty; there is little enough of that, as
women might judge. And besides, you will laugh at my ravings, and say
that a singer is a singer, and nothing more, for all his life. Well,
we shall see in twenty years; you will,--perhaps I shall not.

"Nino," I asked, irrelevantly, following my own train of reflection,
"have you ever thought of anything but music--and love?" He roused