“Trespolo, pick up that nosegay,” said the prince, so audibly that his servant had no further excuse.  “It is from Sister Theresa,” he added, in a low voice; “constancy is only to be found, nowadays, in a convent.”

Trespolo picked up the nosegay and came towards his master, looking like a man who was being strangled.

“Who is that girl?” the latter asked him shortly.

“Which one?” stammered the servant.

“Forsooth!  The one walking in front of us.”

“I don’t know her, my lord.”

“You must find out something about her before this evening.”

“I shall have to go rather far afield.”

“Then you do know her, you intolerable rascal!  I have half a mind to have you hanged like a dog.”

“For pity’s sake, my lord, think of the salvation of your soul, of your eternal life.”

“I advise you to think of your temporal life.  What is her name?”

“She is called Nisida, and is the prettiest girl in the island that she is named after.  She is innocence itself.  Her father is only a poor fisherman, but I can assure your excellency that in his island he is respected like a king.”

“Indeed!” replied the prince, with an ironical smile.  “I must own, to my great shame, that I have never visited the little island of Nisida.  You will have a boat ready for me to-morrow, and then we will see.”

He interrupted himself suddenly, for the king was looking at him; and calling up the most sonorous bass notes that he could find in the depths of his throat, he continued with an inspired air, “Genitori genitoque laus et jubilatio.”

“Amen,” replied the serving-man in a ringing voice.

Nisida, the beloved daughter of Solomon, the fisherman, was, as we have said, the loveliest flower of the island from which she derived her name.  That island is the most charming spot, the most delicious nook with which we are acquainted; it is a basket of greenery set delicately amid the pure and transparent waters of the gulf, a hill wooded with orange trees and oleanders, and crowned at the summit by a marble castle.  All around extends the fairy-like prospect of that immense amphitheatre, one of the mightiest wonders of creation.  There lies Naples, the voluptuous syren, reclining carelessly on the seashore; there, Portici, Castellamare, and Sorrento, the very names of which awaken in the imagination a thousand thoughts of poetry and love; there are Pausilippo, Baiae, Puozzoli, and those vast plains, where the ancients fancied their Elysium, sacred solitudes which one might suppose peopled by the men of former days, where the earth echoes under foot like an empty grave, and the air has unknown sounds and strange melodies.