She looked at him long and earnestly, as if finally reconciling the singer with the man she had known so long.

She found him changed, as I had, in a short time.

His face was sterner and thinner and whiter than before, and there were traces of thought in the deep shadows beneath his eyes.
Quietly observing him, she saw how perfectly simple and exquisitely careful was his dress, and how his hands bespoke that attention which only a gentleman gives to the details of his person.

She saw that, if he were not handsome, he was in the last degree striking to the eye, in spite of all his simplicity, and that he would not lose by being contrasted with all the dandies and courtiers in Rome.

As she looked, she saw his lip quiver slightly, the only sign of emotion he ever gives, unless he loses his head altogether, and storms, as he sometimes does.
"Signorina," he began, "I have come to tell you a story; will you listen to it ?" "Tell it me," said she, still looking in his face.
"There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad.