At noon of the next day, Eve, having run down-stairs into the room where her mother sat, stood before her during the inspection of the attire she had proposed as possible for an approaching masquerade some weeks hence.  She wore a white robe of classic make, and over its trailing folds her bright hair, all unbound from the heavy braids, streamed in a thousand ripples of scattered lustre, the brown breaking into gold, the gloss lurking in tremulous jacinth shadows, tresses like a cascade of ravelled light falling to her feet, shrouding her in a long and luminous veil,—­such “sweet shaken hair” as was never seen since Spenser and Ariosto put their heads together.

“Come sta?” said some one in the doorway.  And there stood Luigi, having deposited his tray of images on the steps, holding up a long string of birds’-eggs blown, tiny varicolored globes plundered from the thrushes, bobolinks, blue-jays, and cedar-birds, and trembling upon the thread as if their concrete melody quivered to open into tune.

For an indignant instant Eve felt her seclusion unwarrantably violated; she turned upon the invader with her blushes, and the venturesome Luigi blenched before the gaze.  Still, though he retreated, a part of him remained:  a slender brown hand, that stretched back in relief against the white door-post, yet suspended the pretty rosary; and there it caught Eve’s eye.

Now it was Euterpe that Eve was to represent at the masquerade; and what ornament so fit and fanciful as this amulet of spring-time, whose charm commanded all that hour of freshness, fragrance, and dew, when the burdened heart of the dawn bubbles over with music?  Yet the enticement was brief.  Eve looked and longed, and then hurriedly turned her back upon the tempting treasure, her two hands thrusting it off.  “Behind me, Satan!” cried she, tossing a laugh at her mother; and Paula, the stately servant who had followed her down, signified to Luigi that the door awaited his movements.

Then the hand quietly withdrew, and his footstep was heard upon the threshold.  It was arrested by a sound:  Eve stood in the doorway, gathering her locks in one hand, and blushing and smiling upon him like sunshine, whether she would or no.

“You are very kind,” said she, hesitating, and fluttering out the broad, snowy love-ribbon that was to ornament her lute, “but, if you please,—­indeed”—­

“Indeed, the Signorina cares not for such bawbles,” said Luigi, sadly, covering her with his gaze.  Then he turned, mounted his tray again, and went slowly down the street, forgetting to cry his wares.

Perhaps, after this, Luigi felt that his situation was desperate; perhaps despair made him bold,—­for, having already spoiled Eve’s pleasure for the day, that same evening found him in her mother’s garden, half hidden in the grape-vines, and watching the movements in the lighted room opposite, through the long window, whose curtain was seldom dropped.