The dark Tuscan eyes, keen and clear the moment before, flashed brightly and then grew humid.

“Eccellenza, you have only to command!  I was a soldier once—­I know what duty means.  But there is a better service—­gratitude.  I am your poor servant, but you have won my heart.  I would give my life for you should you desire it!”

He paused, half ashamed of the emotion that threatened to break through his mask of impassibility, bowed again and would have left me, but that I called him back and held out my hand.

“Shake hands, amico” I said, simply.

He caught it with an astonished yet pleased look—­and stooping, kissed it before I could prevent him, and this time literally scrambled out of my presence with an entire oblivion of his usual dignity.  Left alone, I considered this behavior of his with half-pained surprise.  This poor fellow loved me it was evident—­why, I knew not.  I had done no more for him than any other master might have done for a good servant.  I had often spoken to him with impatience, even harshness; and yet I had “won his heart”—­so he said.  Why should he care for me? why should my poor old butler Giacoma cherish me so devotedly in his memory; why should my very dog still love and obey me, when my nearest and dearest, my wife and my friend, had so gladly forsaken me, and were so eager to forget me!  Perhaps fidelity was not the fashion now among educated persons?  Perhaps it was a worn-out virtue, left to the bas-peuple—­to the vulgar—­and to animals?  Progress might have attained this result—­no doubt it had.

I sighed wearily, and threw myself clown in an arm-chair near the window, and watched the white-sailed boats skimming like flecks of silver across the blue-green water.  The tinkling of a tambourine by and by attracted my wandering attention, and looking into the street just below my balcony I saw a young girl dancing.  She was lovely to look at, and she danced with exquisite grace as well as modesty, but the beauty of her face was not so much caused by perfection of feature or outline as by a certain wistful expression that had in it something of nobility and pride.  I watched her; at the conclusion of her dance she held up her tambourine with a bright but appealing smile.  Silver and copper were freely flung to her, I contributing my quota to the amount; but all she received she at once emptied into a leathern bag which was carried by a young and handsome man who accompanied her, and who, alas! was totally blind.  I knew the couple well, and had often seen them; their history was pathetic enough.  The girl had been betrothed to the young fellow when he had occupied a fairly good position as a worker in silver filigree jewelry.  His eyesight, long painfully strained over his delicate labors, suddenly failed him—­he lost his place, of course, and was utterly without resources.  He offered to release his fiance from her engagement, but she would not take her freedom—­she