FOOTNOTES:

"sull'arti segreteDi menar la Fortuna per il naso,Pescando il certo nel gran mar del Caso."

Despite a wide-spread feeling among the higher classes against the lottery, it still continues to exist, for it has fastened itself into the habits and prejudices of many; and an institution which takes such hold of the passions of the people, and has lived so long, dies hard. Nor are there ever wanting specious excuses for the continuance of this, as of other reprobated systems,—of which the strongest is, that its abolition would not only deprive of their present means of subsistence numbers of persons employed in its administration, but would cut off certain charities dependent upon it, amounting to no less than forty thousandscudiannually. Among these may be mentioned the dowry of fortyscudiwhich is given out of the profits received by the government at the drawing of every lottery to some five or six of the poor girls of Rome. The list of those who would profit by this charity is open to all, and contains thousands of names. The first number drawn in the lottery decides the fortunate persons; and, on the subsequent day, each receives a draft for fortyscudion the government, payable on the presentation of the certificate of marriage. On the accession of the present Pope, an attempt was made to abolish the system; but these considerations, among others, had weight enough to prevent any changes.

Though the play is generally small, yet sometimes large fortunes are gained. The family of the Marchese del Cinque, for instance, derive their title and fortune from the luck of an ancestor who played and won the highest prize, aCinquino. With the money thus acquired he purchased his marquisate, and took the titledel Cinque, "of the Five," in reference to the lucky five numbers. The Villa Quaranta Cinque in Rome derives its name from a similar circumstance. A lucky Monsignore played the single number of forty-five,al posto, and with his winnings built the villa, to which the Romans, always addicted to nicknames, gave the name ofQuaranta Cinque. This love of nicknames, orsoprannomi, as they are called, is, by the way, an odd peculiarity of the Italians, and it often occurs that persons are known only thereby. Examples of these, among the celebrated names of Italy, are so frequent as to form a rule in favor of the surname rather than of the real name, and in many cases the former has utterly obliterated the latter. Thus, Squint Eye, (Guercino,) Dirty Tom, (Masaccio,) The Little Dyer, (Tintoretto,) Great George, (Giorgione,) The Garland-Maker, (Ghirlandaio,) Luke of the Madder, (Luca della Robbia,) The Little Spaniard, (Spagnoletto,) and The Tailor's Son, (Del Sarto,) would scarcely be known under their real names of Barbieri, Tommaso, Guido, Robusti, Barbarelli, Corradi, Ribera, and Vannuchi. The list might be very much enlarged, but let it suffice to add the following well-known names, all of which are nicknames derived from their places of birth: Perugino, Veronese, Aretino, Pisano, Giulio Romano, Correggio, Parmegiano.

The other day a curious instance of this occurred to me in taking the testimony of a Roman coachman. On being called upon to give the names of some of his companions, with whom he had been in daily and intimate intercourse for more than two years, he could give only theirsoprannomi; their real names he did not know, and had never heard. A little, gay, odd genius, whom I took into my service during avilleggiaturaat Siena, would not answer to his real name, Lorenzo, but remonstrated on being so called, and said he was onlyPipetta, (The Little Pipe,) a nickname given to him when a child, from his precocity in smoking, and of which he was as tenacious as if it were a title of honor. "You prefer, then, to be called Pipetta?" I asked. "Felicissimo! sì," was his answer. Not a foreigner comes to Rome that his name does not "suffer a sea-change into something rich andstrange." Our break-jaw Saxon names are discarded, and a new christening takes place. One friend I had who was calledIl Malinconico,—another,La Barbarossa,—another,Il bel Signore; but generally they are called after the number of the house or the name of the street in which they live,—La Signora bella Bionda di Palazzo Albani,—Il Signore Quattordici Capo le Case,—MonsieurandMadama Terzo Piano, Corso.

But to return from this digression.—At every country festival may be seen a peculiar form of the lottery calledTombola; and in the notices of thesefestas, which are always placarded over the walls of Rome for weeks before they take place, the eye will always be attracted first by the imposing wordTombola, printed in the largest and blackest of letters. This is, in fact, the characteristic feature of thefesta, and attracts large numbers ofcontadini. As in the ordinary lottery, only ninety numbers are played. Every ticket contains blank spaces for fifteen numbers, which are inserted by the purchaser, and registered duly at the office or booth where the ticket is bought. The price of tickets in any singleTombolais uniform; but in differentTombolasit varies, of course, according to the amount of the prizes. These are generally five, namely,—theAmbo,Terno,Quaterno,Cinquino, andTombola, though sometimes a secondTombolaorTombolettais added. The drawing takes place in precisely the same manner as in the ordinary lottery, but with more ceremony. A large staging, with a pavilion, is erected, where the officers who are to superintend the drawing stand. In the centre is a glass vase, in which the numbers are placed after having been separately verified and proclaimed, and a boy gayly dressed draws them. All the ninety numbers are drawn; and as each issues, it is called out, and exhibited on a large card. Near by stands a large framework, elevated so as to be visible to all, with ninety divisions corresponding to the ninety numbers, and on this, also, every number is shown as soon as it is drawn. The first person who has upon his ticket two drawn numbers gains anAmbo, which is the smallest prize. Whoever first has three numbers drawn gains aTerno; and so on with theQuaternoandCinquino. TheTombola, which is the great prize, is won by whoever first has his whole fifteen numbers drawn. As soon as any one finds two of the drawn numbers on his ticket, he cries, "Ambo," at the top of his lungs. A flag is then raised on the pavilion, the band plays, and the game is suspended, while the claimant at once makes his way to the judges on the platform to present his ticket for examination. No sooner does the cry of "Ambo," "Terno," "Quaterno," take place, than there is a great rustle all around. Everybody looks out for the fortunate person, who is immediately to be seen running through the parting crowd, which opens before him, cheering him as he goes, if his appearance be poor and needy, and greeting him with sarcasms, if he be apparently well to do in the world. Sometimes there are two or three claimants for the same prize, in which case it is divided among them. TheAmbois soon taken, and there is little room for a mistake; but when it comes to theQuaternoorCinquino, mistakes are very common, and the claimant is almost always saluted with chaff and jests. After his ticket has been examined, if he have won, a placard is exhibited withAmbo,Terno,Quaternoon it, as the case may be. But if he have committed an error, down goes the flag, and, amid a burst of laughter, jeering, whistling, screaming, and catcalls, the disappointed claimant sneaks back and hides himself in the excited crowd. At a really goodTombola, where the prizes are high, there is no end of fun and gayety among the people. They stand with their tickets in their hands, congratulating each other ironically, as they fail to find the numbers on them, paying all sorts of absurd compliments to each other and the drawer, offering to sell out their chances at enormous prices when they are behindhand, and letting off all sortsof squibs and jests, not so excellent in themselves as provocative of laughter. If the wit be little, the fun is great,—and, in the excitement of expectation, a great deal of real Italian humor is often ventilated. Sometimes, at the country fairs, the fun is rather slow, particularly where the prizes are small; but on exciting occasions, there is a constant small fire of jests, which is very amusing.

TheseTomboleare sometimes got up with great pomp. That, for instance, which sometimes takes place in the Villa Borghese is one of the most striking spectacles which can be seen in Rome. At one end of the great open-air amphitheatre is erected a large pavilion, flanked on either side with coveredloggeorpalchi, festooned with yellow and white,—the Papal colors,—adorned with flags, and closed round with rich old arrases all pictured over with Scripture stories. Beneath the central pavilion is a band. Midway down the amphitheatre, on either side, are two morelogge, similarly draped, where two more bands are stationed,—and still another at the opposite end, for the same purpose. Theloggewhich flank the pavilion are sold by ticket, and filled with the richer classes. Three great stagings show the numbers as they are drawn. The pit of the amphitheatre is densely packed with a motley crowd. Under the ilexes and noble stone-pines that show their dark-green foliage against the sky, the helmets and swords of cavalry glitter as they move to and fro. All around on the green slopes are the people,—soldiers,contadini, priests, mingled together,—and thousands of gay dresses and ribbons and parasols enliven the mass. The four bands play successively as the multitude gathers. They have already arrived in tens of thousands, but the game has not yet begun, and thousands are still flocking to see it. All the gay equipages are on the outskirts, and through the trees and up the avenues stream the crowds on foot. As we stand in the centre of the amphitheatre and look up, we get a faint idea of the old Roman gatherings when Rome emptied itself to join in the games at the Colosseum. Row upon row they stand, a mass of gay and swarming life. The sunlight flashes over them, and blazes on the rich colors. The tall pines and dark ilexes shadow them here and there; over them is the soft blue dome of the Italian sky. They are gathered round thevilletta,—they throng the roof and balconies,—they crowd the stone steps,—they pack the green oval of the amphitheatre's pit. The ring of cymbals, the clarion of trumpets, and the clash of brazen music vibrate in the air. All the world is abroad to see, from the infant in arms to the oldest inhabitant.Monsignoriin purple stockings and tricornered hats,contadiniin gay reds and crimsons, cardinals in scarlet. Princes, shopkeepers, beggars, foreigners, all mingle together; while the screams of the vendors of cigars, pumpkin-seeds, cakes, and lemonade are everywhere heard over the suppressed roar of the crowd. As you walk along the outskirts of the mass, you may see Monte Gennaro's dark peak looking over the Campagna, and all the Sabine hills trembling in a purple haze,—or, strolling down through the green avenues, you may watch the silver columns of fountains as they crumble in foam and plash in their mossy basins,—or gather masses of the sweet Parma violet and other beautiful wild-flowers.

The only other games among the modern Romans, which deserve particular notice from their peculiarity, are those of Cards. In an Italian pack there are only forty cards,—the eight, nine, and ten of the French and English cards having no existence. The suits also have different signs and names, and, instead of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, they are calledcoppe,spade,bastoni, anddenari,—all being of the same color, and differing entirely in form from our cards. Thecoppeare cups or vases; thespadeare swords; thebastoniare veritable clubs or bludgeons; and thedenariare coins. The games are still more different from ours than the cards, and they are legion in number. There areBriscola,Tresette,Calabresella,Banco-Fallito,Rossa e Nera,Scaraccoccia,Scopa,Spizzica,Faraone,Zecchinetto,Mercante in Fiera,La Bazzica,Ruba-Monte,Uomo-Nero,La Paura, and I know not how many others,—but they are recorded and explained in no book, and are only to be picked up orally. Wherever you go, onfesta-day, you will find persons playing cards. At the commonosterias, before the doors or on the soiled tables within, on the ruins of the Cæsars' palaces and in the Temple of Peace, on the stone tables in thevigna, on the walls along the public roads, on the uncarved blocks of marble in front of the sculptors' studios, in the antechambers or gateways of palaces,—everywhere, cards are played. Everycontadinohas a pack in his pocket, with the flavor of the soil upon it. The playing is ordinarily for very low sums, often for nothing at all. But there are some games which are purely games of luck, and dangerous. Some of these, asRossa e Nera,Banco-Fallito, andZecchinetto, though prohibited by the government, are none the less favorite games in Rome, particularly among those who play for money.Zecchinettomay be played by any number of persons, after the following manner:—The dealer, who plays against the whole table, deals to each player one card. The next card is then turned up as a trump. Each player then makes his bet on the card dealt to him, and places his money on it. The dealer then deals to the table the other cards in order, and any of the players may bet on them as they are thrown down. If a card of the number of that bet on issue before a card corresponding to the number of the trump, the dealer wins the stake on that card; but whenever a card corresponding to the trump issues, the player wins on every card on which he has bet. When the banker or dealer loses at once, the bank "fa toppa," and the deal passes, but not otherwise. Nothing can be more simple than this game, and it is just as dangerous as it is simple, and as exciting as it is dangerous. A late Romanprincipessais said to have been passionately fond of it, and to have lost enormously by it. The story runs, that, while passing the evening at a friend's house, after losing ten thousandscudiat one sitting, she staked her horses and carriage, which were at the door waiting to take her home, and lost them also. She then wrote a note to the prince, her husband, saying that she had lost her carriage and horses atZecchinetto, and wished others to be sent for her. To which he answered, that she might return on foot,—which she was obliged to do.

This will serve at least as a specimen of the games of chance played by the Romans at cards. Of the more innocent games,Briscola,Tresette, andScaraccocciaare the favorites among the common people. And the first of these may not be uninteresting, as being, perhaps, the most popular of all. It is played by either two or four persons. TheFante(or Knave) counts as two; theCarallo(equal to our Queen) as three; theRè(King) as four; the Three-spot as ten; and the Ace as eleven. Three cards are dealt to each person, and after the deal the next card is turned as trump, orBriscola. Each plays, and, after one card all round is played, its place is supplied by a new deal of one card to each. Every card of the trump-suit takes any card of the other suits. Each player takes as many counting-cards as he can, and, at the end of the game, he who counts the most wins,—the account being made according to the value of the cards, as stated above.

[To be continued.]

FOOTNOTES:[A]See Dessault,Traité de la Passion du Jeu.[B]Even while I am writing these notes, I find almost the same incident recorded as a "modern instance," in a recent work by Lieutenant-Colonel Addison, entitledTraits and Stories of Anglo-Indian Life; but, despite the authority of Colonel Addison, I cannot but suspect that he has simply changed thevenue, and that his story is but arifacimentoof the actual case alluded to above.

[A]See Dessault,Traité de la Passion du Jeu.

[B]Even while I am writing these notes, I find almost the same incident recorded as a "modern instance," in a recent work by Lieutenant-Colonel Addison, entitledTraits and Stories of Anglo-Indian Life; but, despite the authority of Colonel Addison, I cannot but suspect that he has simply changed thevenue, and that his story is but arifacimentoof the actual case alluded to above.

Papa made Mr. Dudley stay and dine, and of course we were almost bored to death, when in came Rose again, stealing behind Lu's chair and showering her in the twilight with a rain of May-flowers.

"Now you'll have to gather them again," he said.

"Oh, how exquisite! how delicious! how I thank you!" she exclaimed, without disturbing one, however.

"You won't touch them again? Then I must," he added.

"No! no! Mr. Rose!" I cried. "I'll pick them up and take toll."

"Don't touch them!" said Lu, "they're so sweet!"

"Yes," he murmured lower, "they're like you. I always said so, you remember."

"Oh, yes! and every May-day but the last you have brought them to me."

"Have you the trailing-arbutus there?" asked Mr. Dudley.

"No," returned Rose.

"I thought I detected strawberries," submitted the other,—"a pleasant odor which recalls childhood to memory."

For some noses all sweet scents are lumped in one big strawberry; clovers, or hyacinths, or every laden air indifferently, they still sniff strawberries. Commonplace things!

"It's a sign of high birth to track strawberry-beds where no fruit is, Mr. Dudley," said I.

"Very true, Miss Willoughby. I was born pretty high up in the Green Mountains."

"And so keep your memory green?"

"Strawberries in June," said Rose, good-naturedly. "But fruit out of season is trouble out of reason, the Dream-Book says. It's May now, and these are its blossoms."

"Everybody makes such a fuss about ground-laurel!" said I. "I don't see why, I'm sure. They're never perfect. The leaf is hideous,—a stupid duenna! You get great green leaves, and the flowers all white; you get deep, rosy flowers, and the leaves are all brown and bitten. They're neither one thing nor another. They're just like heliotropes,—no bloom at all, only scent. I've torn up myriads, to the ten stamens in their feathered case, to find where that smell comes from,—that is perfectly delicious,—and I never could. They are a cheat."

"Have you finished your tirade?" asked Rose, indifferently.

"I don't believe you mean so," murmured Lu. "They have a color of their own, almost human, infantine; and when you mass them, the tone is more soft and mellow than a flute. Everybody loves May-flowers."

"Just about. I despise flutes. I like bassoons."

"They are prophets of apple-blossoms."

"Which brings them at once into the culinary."

"They are not very showy," said Mr. Dudley; "but when we remember the Fathers"——

"There's nothing like them," said Rose, gently, as he knelt by Lu, slowly putting them into order; "nothing but pure, clear things; they're the fruit of snowflakes, the firstlings of the year. When one thinks how sweetly they come from their warm coverts and look into this cold, breezy sky so unshrinkingly, and from what a soil they gather such a wealth of simple beauty, one feels ashamed."

"Climax worthy of the useless things!" said I.

"The moment in which first we are thoroughly ashamed, Miss Willoughby, is the sovereign one of our life. Useless things? They are worth king and bishop. Every year, weariness and depressionmelt away when atop of the seasons' crucible boil these little bubbles. Isn't everybody better for lavishing love? And no one merely likes these; whoever cares at all loves entirely. We always take and give resemblances or sympathies from any close connection, and so these are in their way a type of their lovers. What virtue is in them to distil the shadow of the great pines, that wave layer after layer with a grave rhythm over them, into this delicate tint, I wonder. They have so decided an individuality,—different there from hot-house belles;—fashion strips us of our characteristics"——

"You needn't turn to me for illustration of exotics," said I.

He threw me a cluster, half-hidden in its green towers, and went on, laying one by one and bringing out little effects.

"The sweetest modesty clings to them, which Alphonse Karr denies to the violet, so that they are almost out of place in a drawing-room; one ought to give them there the shelter of their large, kind leaves."

"Hemlock's the only wear," said Louise.

"Or last year's scarlet blackberry triads. Vines together," he suggested.

"But sometimes they forget their nun-like habit," she added, "put on a frolicsome mood, and clamber out and flush all the deep ruts of the carriage-road in Follymill woods, you remember."

"Penance next year," said I.

"No, no; you are not to bring your old world into my new," objected Rose. "Perhaps they ran out so to greet the winter-worn mariners of Plymouth, and have been pursued by the love of their descendants ever since, they getting charier. Just remember how they grow. Why, you'd never suspect a flower there, till, happening to turn up a leaf, you're in the midst of harvest. You may tramp acres in vain, and within a stone's throw they've been awaiting you. There's something very charming, too, about them in this,—that when the buds are set, and at last a single blossom starts the trail, you plucking at one end of the vine, your heart's delight may touch the other a hundred miles away. Spring's telegraph. So they bind our coast with this network of flower and root."

"By no means," I asserted. "They grow in spots."

"Pshaw! I won't believe it. They're everywhere just the same, only underground preparing their little witnesses, whom they send out where most needed. You don't suppose they find much joy in the fellowship of brown pine pins and sad, gray mosses, do you? Some folks say they don't grow away from the shore; but I've found them, I'm sorry to say, up in New Hampshire."

"Why sorry?" asked Lu.

"Oh, I like it best that they need our sea. They're eminently choice for this hour, too, when you scarcely gather their tint,—that tint, as if moonlight should wish to become a flower,—but their fragrance is an atmosphere all about you. How genuinely spicy it is! It's the very quintessence of those regions all whose sweetness exudes in sun-saturated balsams,—the very breath of pine woods and salt sea winds. How could it live away from the sea?"

"Why, Sir," said Mr. Dudley, "you speak as if it were a creature!"

"A hard, woody stem, a green, robust leaf, a delicate, odorous flower, Mr. Dudley, what is it all but an expression of New England character?"

"Doxology!" said I.

"Now, Miss Louise, as you have made me atone for my freedom, the task being done, let me present them in form."

"I'm sure she needn't praise them," said I.

She didn't.

"I declared people make a great fuss over them," I continued. "And you prove it. You put me in mind of a sound, to be heard where one gets them,—a strange sound, like low, distant thunder, and it's nothing but the drum of a little partridge! a great song out of nothing.—Bless me! what's that?"

"Oh, the fireworks!" said Lu. And we all thronged to the windows.

"It's very good of your uncle to have them," said Rose. "What a crowd from the town! Think of the pyrotechnics among comets and aërolites some fellows may have! It's quite right, too, to make our festivals with light; it's the highest and last of all things; we never can carry our imaginations beyond light"——

"Our imaginations ought to carry us," said Lu.

"Come," I said, "you can play what pranks you please with the little May; but light is my province, my absorption; let it alone."

It grew quite dark, interrupted now and then by the glare of rockets; but at last a stream of central fire went out in a slow rain of countless violets, reflected with pale blue flashes in the river below, and then the gloom was unbroken. I saw them, in that long, dim gleam, standing together at a window. Louise, her figure almost swaying as if to some inaudible music, but her face turned to him with such a steady quiet. Ah, me! what a tremulous joy, what passion, and what search, lit those eyes! But you know that passion means suffering, and, tracing it in the original through its roots, you come to pathos, and still farther, to lamentation, I've heard. But he was not looking down at her, only out and away, paler than ever in the blue light, sad and resolved. I ordered candles.

"Sing to me, Louise," said Rose, at length. "It is two years since I heard you."

"Sing 'What's a' the steer, kimmer,'" I said. But instead, she gave the little ballad, 'And bring my love again, for he lies among the moors.'

Rose went and leaned over the pianoforte while she sang, bending and commanding her eyes. He seemed to wish to put himself where he was before he ever left her, to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring her before him as utterly developed as she might be,—not only to afford her, but to force upon her every chance to master him. He seemed to wish to love, I thought.

"Thank you," he said, as she ceased. "Did you choose it purposely, Louise?"

Lu sang very nicely, and, though I dare say she would rather not then, when Mr. Dudley asked for the "Vale of Avoca" and the "Margin of Zürich's Fair Waters," she gave them just as kindly. Altogether, quite a damp programme. Then papa came in, bright and blithe, whirled me round in apas de deux, and we all very gay and hilarious slipped into the second of May.

Dear me! how time goes! I must hurry.—After that,Ididn't see so much of Rose; but he met Lu everywhere, came in when I was out, and, if I returned, he went, perfectly regardless of my existence, it seemed. They rode, too, all round the country; and she sat to him, though he never filled out the sketch. For weeks he was devoted; but I fancied, when I saw them, that there lingered in his manner the same thing as on the first evening while she sang to him. Lu was so gay and sweet and happy that I hardly knew her; she was always very gentle, but such a decided body,—that's the Willoughby, her mother. Yet during these weeks Rose had not spoken, not formally; delicate and friendly kindness was all Lu could have found, had she sought. One night, I remember, he came in and wanted us to go out and row with him on the river. Lu wouldn't go without me.

"Will you come?" said he, coolly, as if I were merely necessary as a thwart or thole-pin might have been, turning and letting his eyes fall on me an instant, then snatching them off with a sparkle and flush, and such a lordly carelessness of manner otherwise.

"Certainly not," I replied.

So they remained, and Lu began to open a bundle of Border Ballads, which he had brought her. The very first one was "Whistle an' I'll come to you, my lad." I laughed. She glanced up quickly, then held it in her hands a moment,repeated the name, and asked if he liked it.

"Oh, yes," he said. "There couldn't be a Scotch song without that rhythm better than melody, which, after all, is Beethoven's secret."

"Perhaps," said Louise. "But I shall not sing this."

"Oh, do!" he said, turning with surprise. "You don't know what an aërial, whistling little thing it is!"

"No."

"Why, Louise! There is nobody could sing it but you."

"Of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God," quoted I, and in came Mr. Dudley, as he usually did when not wanted; though I've no reason to find fault with him, notwithstanding his blank treatment of me. He never took any notice, because he was in love with Lu. Rose never took any notice of me, either. But with a difference!

Lu was singularly condescending to Mr. Dudley that evening; and Rose, sitting aside, looked so very much disturbed—whether pleasantly or otherwise didn't occur to me—that I couldn't help enjoying his discomfiture, and watching him through it.

Now, though I told you I wasn't nervous, I never should know I had this luxurious calm, if there were nothing to measure it by; and once in a great while a perfect whirlpool seizes me,—my blood is all in turmoil,—I bubble with silent laughter, or cry with all my heart. I had been in such a strange state a good while, and now, as I surveyed Rose, it gradually grew fiercer, till I actually sprang to my feet, and exclaimed, "There! it is insupportable! I've been in the magnetic storm long enough! it is time something took it from me!" and ran out-doors.

Rose sauntered after, by-and-by, as if unwillingly drawn by a loadstone, and found the heavens wrapped in a rosy flame of Northern Lights. He looked as though he belonged to them, so pale and elf-like was his face then, like one bewitched.

"Papa's fireworks fade before mine," I said. "Now we can live in the woods, as Lu has been wishing; for a dry southerly wind follows this, with a blue smoke filming all the distant fields. Won't it be delicious?"

"Or rain," he replied; "I think it will rain to-morrow,—warm, full rains"; and he seemed as if such a chance would dissolve him entirely.

As for me, those shifting, silent sheets of splendor abstracted all that was alien, and left me in my normal state.

"There they come!" I said, as Lu and Mr. Dudley, and some others who had entered in my absence,—gnats dancing in the beam,—stepped down toward us. "How charming for us all to sit out here!"

"How annoying, you mean," he replied, simply for contradiction.

"It hasn't been warm enough before," I added.

"And Louise may take cold now," he said, as if wishing to exhibit his care for her. "Whom is she speaking with? Blarsaye? And who comes after?"

"Parti. A delightful person,—been abroad, too. You and he can have a crack about Louvres and Vaticans now, and leave Lu and Mr. Dudley to me."

Rose suddenly inspected me and then Parti, as if he preferred the crack to be with cudgels; but in a second the little blaze vanished, and he only stripped a weigelia branch of every blossom.

I wonder what made Lu behave so that night; she scarcely spoke to Rose, appeared entirely unconcerned while he hovered round her like an officious sprite, was all grace to the others and sweetness to Mr. Dudley. And Rose, oblivious of snubs, paraded his devotion, seemed determined to show his love for Lu,—as if any one cared a straw,—and took the pains to be positively rude to me. He was possessed of an odd restlessness; a little defiance bristled his movements, an air of contrariness; and whenever he became quiet, he seemed again like one enchanted and folded up in a dream, to break whose spell he was about to abandonefforts. He told me life had destroyed my enchantment; I wonder what will destroy his. Lu refused to sit in the garden-chair he offered,—just suffered the wreath of pink bells he gave her to hang in her hand, and by-and-by fall,—and when the north grew ruddier and swept the zenith with lances of light, and when it faded, and a dim cloud hazed all the stars, preserved the same equanimity, kept on theeviltenor of her way, and bade every one an impartial farewell at separating. She is preciously well-bred.

We hadn't remained in the garden all that time, though,—but, strolling through the gate and over the field, had reached a small grove that fringes the gully worn by Wild Fall and crossed by the railway. As we emerged from that, talking gayly, and our voices almost drowned by the dash of the little waterfall and the echo from the opposite rock, I sprang across the curving track, thinking them behind, and at the same instant a thunderous roar burst all about, a torrent of hot air whizzed and eddied over me, I fell dizzied and stunned, and the night express-train shot by like a burning arrow. Of course I was dreadfully hurt by my fall and fright,—I feel the shock now,—but they all stood on the little mound, from which I had sprung, like so many petrifactions: Rose, just as he had caught Louise back on firmer ground, when she was about to follow me, his arm wound swiftly round her waist, yet his head thrust forward eagerly, his pale face and glowing eyes bent, not on her, but me. Still he never stirred, and poor Mr. Dudley first came to my assistance. We all drew breath at our escape, and, a little slowly, on my account, turned homeward.

"You are not bruised, Miss Willoughby?" asked Blarsaye, wakened.

"Dear Yone!" Lu said, leaving Mr. Dudley's arm, "you're so very pale! It's not pain, is it?"

"I am not conscious of any. Why should I be injured, any more than you?"

"Do you know," said Rose,sotto voce, turning and bending merely his head to me, "I thought I heard you scream, and that you were dead."

"And what then?"

"Nothing, but that you were lying dead and torn, and I should see you," he said,—and said as if he liked to say it, experiencing a kind of savage delight at his ability to say it.

"A pity to have disappointed you!" I answered.

"I saw it coming before you leaped," he added, as a malignant finality, and drawing nearer. "You were both on the brink. I called, but probably neither you nor Lu heard me. So I snatched her back."

Now I had been next him then.

"Jove's balance," I said, taking Parti's arm.

He turned instantly to Lu, and kept by her during the remainder of the walk, Mr. Dudley being at the other side. I was puzzled a little by Lu, as I have been a good many times since; I thought she liked Rose so much. Papa met us in the field, and there the affair must be detailed to him, and then he would have us celebrate our safety in Champagne.

"Good-bye, Louise," said Rose, beside her at the gate, and offering his hand, somewhat later. "I'm going away to-morrow, if it's fine."

"Going?" with involuntary surprise.

"To camp out in Maine."

"Oh! I hope you will enjoy it."

"Would you stay long, Louise?"

"If the sketching-grounds are good."

"When I come back, you'll sing my songs? Shake hands."

She just laid a cold touch on his.

"Louise, are you offended with me?"

She looked up with so much simplicity. "Offended, Rose, with you?"

"Not offended, but frozen," I could have said. Lu is like that little sensitive-plant, shrinking into herself with stiff unconsciousness at a certain touch. But I don't think he noticed the sad tone in her voice, as she said good-night; I didn't, till, the others being gone, I saw her turn after his disappearing figure, with a lookthat would have been despairing, but for its supplication.

The only thing Lu ever said to me about this was,—

"Don't you think Rose a little altered, Yone, since he came home?"

"Altered?"

"I have noticed it ever since you showed him your beads, that day."

"Oh! it's the amber," I said. "They are amulets, and have bound him in a thrall. You must wear them, and dissolve the charm. He's in a dream."

"What is it to be in a dream?" she asked.

"To lose thought of past or future."

She repeated my words,—"Yes, he's in a dream," she said, musingly.

Rose didn't come near us for a fortnight; but he had not camped at all, as he said. It was the first stone thrown into Lu's life, and I never saw any one keep the ripples under so; but her suspicions were aroused. Finally he came in again, all as before, and I thought things might have been different, if in that fortnight Mr. Dudley had not been so assiduous; and now, to the latter's happiness, there were several ragged children and infirm old women in whom, Lu having taken them in charge, he chose to be especially interested. Lu always was housekeeper, both because it had fallen to her while mamma and I were away, and because she had an administrative faculty equal to General Jackson's; and Rose, who had frequently gone about with her, inspecting jellies and cordials and adding up her accounts, now unexpectedly found Mr. Dudley so near his former place that he disdained to resume it himself;—not entirely, because the man of course couldn't be as familiar as an old playmate; but just enough to put Rose aside. He never would compete with any one; and Lu did not know how to repulse the other.

If the amulets had ravished Rose from himself, they did it at a distance, for I had not worn them since that day.—You needn't look. Thales imagined amber had a spirit; and Pliny says it is a counter-charm for sorceries. There are a great many mysterious things in the world. Aren't there any hidden relations between us and certain substances? Will you tell me something impossible?—But he came and went about Louise, and she sung his songs, and all was going finely again, when we gave our midsummer party.

Everybody was there, of course, and we had enrapturing music. Louise wore—no matter—something of twilight purple, and begged for the amber, since it was too much for my toilette,—a double India muslin, whose snowy sheen scintillated with festoons of gorgeous green beetles' wings flaming like fiery emeralds.—A family dress, my dear, and worn by my aunt before me,—only that individual must have been frightened out of her wits by it. A cruel, savage dress, very like, but ineffably gorgeous.—So I wore her aquamarina, though the other would have been better; and when I sailed in, with all the airy folds in a hoar-frost mistiness fluttering round me and the glitter of Lu's jewels,—

"Why!" said Rose, "you look like the moon in a halo."

But Lu disliked a hostess out-dressing her guests.

It was dull enough till quite late, and then I stepped out with Mr. Parti, and walked up and down a garden-path. Others were outside as well, and the last time I passed a little arbor I caught a yellow gleam of amber. Lu, of course. Who was with her? A gentleman, bending low to catch her words, holding her hand in an irresistible pressure. Not Rose, for he was flitting in beyond. Mr. Dudley. And I saw then that Lu's kindness was too great to allow her to repel him angrily; her gentle conscience let her wound no one. Had Rose seen the pantomime? Without doubt. He had been seeking her, and he found her, he thought, in Mr. Dudley's arms. After a while we went in, and, finding all smooth enough,I slipped through the balcony-window and hung over the balustrade, glad to be alone a moment. The wind, blowing in, carried the gay sounds away from me, even the music came richly muffled through the heavy curtains, and I wished to breathe balm and calm. The moon, round and full, was just rising, making the gloom below more sweet. A full moon is poison to some; they shut it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross them; it has a chemical or magnetic effect; it sickens them. But I am never more free and royal than when the subtile celerity of its magic combinations, whatever they are, is at work. Never had I known the mere joy of being so intimately as to-night. The river slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles that climbed around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole and swathed me; long wafts of faint harmony gently thrilled me. Dewy and dark and uncertain was all beyond. I, possessed with a joyousness so deep through its contented languor as to counterfeit serenity, forgot all my wealth of nature, my pomp of beauty, abandoned myself to the hour.

A strain of melancholy dance-music pierced the air and fell. I half turned my head, and my eyes met Rose. He had been there before me, perhaps. His face, white and shining in the light, shining with a strange sweet smile of relief, of satisfaction, of delight, his lips quivering with unspoken words, his eyes dusky with depth after depth of passion. How long did my eyes swim on his? I cannot tell. He never stirred; still leaned there against the pillar, still looked down on me like a marble god. The sudden tears dazzled my gaze, fell down my hot cheek, and still I knelt fascinated by that smile. In that moment I felt that he was more beautiful than the night, than the music, than I. Then I knew that all this time, all summer, all past summers, all my life long, I had loved him.

Some one was waiting to make his adieux; I heard my father seeking me; I parted the curtains, and went in. One after one those tedious people left, the lights grew dim, and still he stayed without. I ran to the window, and, lifting the curtain, bent forward, crying,—

"Mr. Rose! do you spend the night on the balcony?"

Then he moved, stepped down, murmured something to my father, bowed loftily to Louise, passed me without a sign, and went out. In a moment, Lu's voice, a quick, sharp exclamation, touched him; he turned, came back. She, wondering at him, had stood toying with the amber, and at last crushing the miracle of the whole, a bell-wort wrought most delicately with all the dusty pollen grained upon its anthers, crushing it between her fingers, breaking the thread, and scattering the beads upon the carpet. He stooped with her to gather them again, he took from her hand and restored to her afterward the shattered fragments of the bell-wort, he helped her disentangle the aromatic string from her falling braids,—for I kept apart,—he breathed the penetrating incense of each separate amulet, and I saw that from that hour, when every atom of his sensation was tense and vibrating, she would be associated with the loathed amber in his undefined consciousness, would be surrounded with an atmosphere of its perfume, that Lu was truly sealed from him in it, sealed into herself. Then again, saying no word, he went out.

Louise stood like one lost,—took aimlessly a few steps,—retraced them,—approached a table,—touched something,—left it.

"I am so sorry about your beads!" she said, apologetically, when she looked up and saw me astonished, putting the broken pieces into my hand.

"Goodness! Is that what you are fluttering about so for?"

"They can't be mended," she continued, "but I will thread them again."

"I don't care about them, I'm sick of amber," I answered, consolingly. "You may have them, if you will."

"No. I must pay too great a price for them," she replied.

"Nonsense! when they break again, I'll pay you back," I said, without in the least knowing what she meant. "I didn't know you were too proud for a 'thank you!'"

She came up and put both her arms round my neck, laid her cheek beside mine a minute, kissed me, and went up-stairs. Lu always rather worshipped me.

Dressing my hair that night, Carmine, my maid, begged for the remnants of the bell-wort to "make a scent-bag with, Miss."

Next day, no Rose; it rained. But at night he came and took possession of the room, with a strange, airy gayety never seen in him before. It was so chilly, that I had heaped the wood-boughs, used in the yesterday's decorations, on the hearth, and lighted a fragrant crackling flame that danced up wildly at my touch,—for I have the faculty of fire. I sat at one side, Lu at the other, papa was holding a skein of silk for her to wind, the amber beads were twinkling in the firelight,—and when she slipped them slowly on the thread, bead after bead, warmed through and through by the real blaze, they crowded the room afresh with their pungent spiciness. Papa had called Rose to take his place at the other end of the silk, and had gone out; and when Lu finished, she fastened the ends, cut the thread, Rose likening her to Atropos, and put them back into her basket. Still playing with the scissors, following down the lines of her hand, a little snap was heard.

"Oh!" said Louise, "I have broken my ring!"

"Can't it be repaired?" I asked.

"No," she returned briefly, but pleasantly, and threw the pieces into the fire.

"The hand must not be ringless," said Rose; and slipping off the ring of hers that he wore, he dropped it upon the amber, then got up and threw an armful of fresh boughs upon the blaze.

So that was all done. Then Rose was gayer than before. He is one of those people to whom you must allow moods,—when their sun shines, dance, and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uniformly; and so sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimaterapport, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. He is full of perpetual surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the fire, and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper in profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and unlike Mr. Dudley. I pointed one out to Lu, and, if he had needed confirmation, her changing color gave it. He only glanced at her askance, and then broke into the merriest description of his life in Rome, of which he declared he had not spoken to us yet, talking fast and laughing as gleefully as a child, and illustrating people and localities with scissors and paper as he went on, a couple of careless snips putting a whole scene before us.

The floor was well-strewn with such chips,—fountains, statues, baths, and all the persons of his little drama,—when papa came in. He held an open letter, and, sitting down, read it over again. Rose fell into silence, clipping the scissors daintily in and out the white sheet through twinkling intricacies. As the design dropped out, I caught it,—a long wreath of honeysuckle-blossoms. Lu was humming a little tune. Rose joined, and hummed the last bars, then bade us good-night.

"Yone," said papa, "your Aunt Willoughby is very ill,—will not recover. She is my elder brother's widow; you are her heir. You must go and stay with her."

Now it was very likely that just at this time I was going away to nurse Aunt Willoughby! Moreover, illness is my veryantipodes,—its nearness is invasion,—we are utterly antipathetic,—it disgusts and repels me. What sympathy can there be between my florid health, my rank, redundant life, and any wasting disease of death? What more hostile than focal concentration and obscure decomposition? You see, we cannot breathe the same atmosphere. I banish the thought of such a thing from my feeling, from my memory. So I said,—

"It's impossible. I'm not going an inch to Aunt Willoughby's. Why, papa, it's more than a hundred miles, and in this weather!"

"Oh, the wind has changed."

"Then it will be too warm for such a journey."

"A new idea, Yone! Too warm for the mountains?"

"Yes, papa. I'm not going a step."

"Why, Yone, you astonish me! Your sick aunt!"

"That's the very thing. If she were well, I might,—perhaps. Sick! What can I do for her? I never go into a sick-room. I hate it. I don't know how to do a thing there. Don't say another word, papa. I can't go."

"It is out of the question to let it pass so, my dear. Here you are nursing all the invalids in town, yet"——

"Indeed, I'm not, papa. I don't know and don't care whether they're dead or alive."

"Well, then, it's Lu."

"Oh, yes, she's hospital-agent for half the country."

"Then it is time that you also got a little experience."

"Don't, papa! I don't want it. I never saw anybody die, and I never mean to."

"Can't I do as well, uncle?" asked Lu.

"You, darling? Yes; but it isn't your duty."

"I thought, perhaps," she said, "you would rather Yone went."

"So I would."

"Dear papa, don't vex me! Ask anything else!"

"It is so unpleasant to Yone," Lu murmured, "that maybe I had better go. And if you've no objection, Sir, I'll take the early train to-morrow."

Wasn't she an angel?

Lu was away a month. Rose came in, expressing his surprise. I said, "Othello's occupation's gone?"

"And left him room for pleasure now," he retorted.

"Which means seclusion from the world, in the society of lakes and chromes."

"Miss Willoughby," said he, turning and looking directly past me, "may I paint you?"

"Me? Oh, you can't."

"No; but may I try?"

"I cannot go to you."

"I will come to you."

"Do you suppose it will be like?"

"Not at all, of course. It is to be, then?"

"Oh, I've no more right than any other piece of Nature to refuse an artist a study in color."

He faced about, half pouting, as if he would go out, then returned and fixed the time.

So he painted. He generally put me into a broad beam that slanted from the top of the veiled window, and day after day he worked. Ah, what glorious days they were! how gay! how full of life! I almost feared to let him image me on canvas, do you know? I had a fancy it would lay my soul so bare to his inspection. What secrets might be searched, what depths fathomed, at such times, if men knew! I feared lest he should see me as I am, in those great masses of warm light lying before him, as I feared he saw when he said amber harmonized with me,—all being things not polarized, not organized, without centre, so to speak. But it escaped him, and he wrought on. Did he succeed? Bless you! he might as well have painted the sun; and who could do that? No; but shades and combinations that he had hardly touched or known, before, he had to lavish now; he learned more than some years might have taught him; he, who worshippedbeauty, saw how thoroughly I possessed it; he has told me that through me he learned the sacredness of color. "Since he loves beauty so, why does he not love me?" I asked myself; and perhaps the feverish hope and suspense only lit up that beauty and fed it with fresh fires. Ah, the July days! Did you ever wander over barren, parched stubble-fields, and suddenly front a knot of red Turk's-cap lilies, flaring as if they had drawn all the heat and brilliance from the land into their tissues? Such were they. And if I were to grow old and gray, they would light down all my life, and I could be willing to lead a dull, grave age, looking back and remembering them, warming myself forever in their constant youth. If I had nothing to hope, they would become my whole existence. Think, then, what it will be to have all days like those!

He never satisfied himself, as he might have done, had he known me better,—and he nevershallknow me!—and used to look at me for the secret of his failure, till I laughed; then the look grew wistful, grew enamored. By-and-by we left the pictures. We went into the woods, warm, dry woods; we stayed there from morning till night. In the burning noons, we hung suspended between two heavens, in our boat on glassy forest-pools, where now and then a shoal of white lilies rose and crowded out the under-sky. Sunsets burst like bubbles over us. When the hidden thrushes were breaking one's heart with music, and the sweet fern sent up a tropical fragrance beneath our crushing steps, we came home to rooms full of guests and my father's genial warmth. What a month it was!

One day papa went up into New Hampshire; Aunt Willoughby was dead; and one day Lu came home.

She was very pale and thin. Her eyes were hollow and purple.

"There is some mistake, Lu," I said. "It is you who are dead, instead of Aunt Willoughby."

"Do I look so wretchedly?" she asked, glancing at the mirror.

"Dreadfully! Is it all watching and grief?"

"Watching and grief," said Lu.

How melancholy her smile was! She would have crazed me in a little while, if I had minded her.

"Did you care so much for fretful, crabbed Aunt Willoughby?"

"She was very kind to me," Lu replied.

There was an odd air with her that day. She didn't go at once and get off her travelling-dress, but trifled about in a kind of expectancy, a little fever going and coming in her cheeks, and turning at any noise.

Will you believe it?—though I know Lu had refused him,—who met her at the half-way junction, saw about her luggage, and drove home with her, but Mr. Dudley, and was with us, a half-hour afterward, when Rose came in? Lu didn't turn at his step, but the little fever in her face prevented his seeing her as I had done. He shook hands with her and asked after her health, and shook hands with Mr. Dudley, (who hadn't been near us during her absence,) and seemed to wish she should feel that he recognized without pain a connection between herself and that personage. But when he came back to me, I was perplexed again at that bewitched look in his face,—as if Lu's presence made him feel that he was in a dream, I the enchantress of that dream. It did not last long, though. And soon she saw Mr. Dudley out, and went up-stairs.

When Lu came down to tea, she had my beads in her hand again.

"I went into your room and got them, dear Yone," she said, "because I have found something to replace the broken bell-wort"; and she showed us a little amber bee, black and golden. "Not so lovely as the bell-wort," she resumed, "and I must pierce it for the thread; but it will fill the number. Was I not fortunate to find it?"

But when at a flame she heated a long, slender needle to pierce it, the little winged wonder shivered between herfingers, and under the hot steel filled the room with the honeyed smell of its dusted substance.

"Never mind," said I again. "It's a shame, though,—it was so much prettier than the bell-wort! We might have known it was too brittle. It's just as well, Lu."

The room smelt like a chancel at vespers. Rose sauntered to the window, and so down the garden, and then home.

"Yes. It cannot be helped," she said, with a smile. "But I really counted upon seeing it on the string. I'm not lucky at amber. You know little Asian said it would bring bane to the bearer."

"Dear! dear! I had quite forgotten!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Lu, keep it, or give it away, or something! I don't want it any longer."

"You're very vehement," she said, laughing now. "I am not afraid of your gods. Shall I wear them?"

So the rest of the summer Lu twined them round her throat,—amulets of sorcery, orbs of separation; but one night she brought them back to me. That was last night. There they lie.

The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I was on the lounge in the alcove parlor, my hair half streaming out of Lu's net; but he didn't mind. The light was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came and sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall table with its dish of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while I looked down the drawing-room. He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do not die, Phene." He read it through,—all that perfect, perfect scene. From the moment when he said,

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