“Then why,” said the nurse, briskly, “dost thou dream of him?”

Her companion sighed again more deeply than at first.

“Holy St. Catherine!” continued Benedetta, “if there were but one man in the world, I would die single ere I would think of him, until, at least, he had kissed my hand twice, and left it my own fault if it were not my lips instead.”

The young lady still replied not.

“But how didst thou contrive to love him?” asked the nurse.  “Thou canst not have seen him very often:  it is but some four or five weeks since his return to Rome.”

“Oh, how dull art thou?” answered the fair Irene.  “Have I not told thee again and again, that I loved him six years ago?”

“When thou hadst told but thy tenth year, and a doll would have been thy most suitable lover!  As I am a Christian, Signora, thou hast made good use of thy time.

“And during his absence,” continued the girl, fondly, yet sadly, “did I not hear him spoken of, and was not the mere sound of his name like a love-gift that bade me remember?  And when they praised him, have I not rejoiced? and when they blamed him, have I not resented? and when they said that his lance was victorious in the tourney, did I not weep with pride? and when they whispered that his vows were welcome in the bower, wept I not as fervently with grief?  Have not the six years of his absence been a dream, and was not his return a waking into light—­a morning of glory and the sun? and I see him now in the church when he wots not of me; and on his happy steed as he passes by my lattice:  and is not that enough of happiness for love?”

“But if he loves not thee?”

“Fool!  I ask not that;—­nay, I know not if I wish it.  Perhaps I would rather dream of him, such as I would have him, than know him for what he is.  He might be unkind, or ungenerous, or love me but little; rather would I not be loved at all, than loved coldly, and eat away my heart by comparing it with his.  I can love him now as something abstract, unreal, and divine:  but what would be my shame, my grief, if I were to find him less than I have imagined!  Then, indeed, my life would have been wasted; then, indeed, the beauty of the earth would be gone!”

The good nurse was not very capable of sympathizing with sentiments like these.  Even had their characters been more alike, their disparity of age would have rendered such sympathy impossible.  What but youth can echo back the soul of youth—­all the music of its wild vanities and romantic follies?  The good nurse did not sympathize with the sentiments of her young lady, but she sympathised with the deep earnestness with which they were expressed.  She thought it wondrous silly, but wondrous moving; she wiped her eyes with the corner of her veil, and hoped in her secret heart that her young charge would soon get a real husband to put such unsubstantial fantasies out of her head.  There was a short pause in their conversation, when, just where two streets crossed one another, there was heard a loud noise of laughing voices and trampling feet.  Torches were seen on high affronting the pale light of the moon; and, at a very short distance from the two females, in the cross street, advanced a company of seven or eight men, bearing, as seen by the red light of the torches, the formidable badge of the Orsini.