But suddenly Celia desisted and said very gravely, "You know, Dario, she loves you; you must not be hard on her." Dario, no doubt, was of Celia's opinion, for he again looked at Benedetta, but with a gay toss of the head, as if to say that, although the girl might love him, he did not love her.

A bead-worker indeed, a girl of the lowest classes, pooh! She might be a Venus, but she could be nothing to him.

And he himself made merry over his romantic adventure, which Narcisse sought to arrange in a kind of antique sonnet: A beautiful bead-worker falling madly in love with a young prince, as fair as sunlight, who, touched by her misfortune, hands her a silver crown; then the beautiful bead-worker, quite overcome at finding him as charitable as handsome, dreaming of him incessantly, and following him everywhere, chained to his steps by a link of flame; and finally the beautiful bead-worker, who has refused the silver crown, so entreating the handsome prince with her soft, submissive eyes, that he at last deigns to grant her the alms of his heart.

This pastime greatly amused Benedetta; but Celia, with her angelic face and the air of a little girl who ought to have been ignorant of everything, remained very grave and repeated sadly, "Dario, Dario, she loves you; you must not make her suffer." Then the Contessina, in her turn, was moved to pity.

"And those poor folks are not happy!" said she.
"Oh!" exclaimed the Prince, "it's misery beyond belief.