I smiled at his enthusiasm, and pouring out some choice Montepulciano, bade him taste it. He did so with a keen appreciation of its flavor, such as many a so-called connoisseur of wines does not possess.

"To your health, eccellenza!" he said, "and may you long enjoy your life!"

I thanked him; but in my heart I was far from echoing the kindly wish.

"And are you going to fulfill the prophecy of your friends, Andrea?" I asked. "Are you about to marry?"

He set down his glass only partly emptied, and smiled with an air of mystery.

"Ebbene! chi sa!" he replied, with a gay little shrug of his shoulders, yet with a sudden tenderness in his keen eyes that did not escape me. "There is a maiden--my mother loves her well--she is little and fair as Carmelo Neri's Teresa--so high," and he laid his brown hand lightly on his breast, "her head touches just here," and he laughed. "She looks as frail as a lily, but she is hardy as a sea-gull, and no one loves the wild waves more than she. Perhaps, in the month of the Madonna, when the white lilies bloom--perhaps!--one can never tell--the old song may be sung for us-"Chi sa fervente amar Solo e felice!"

And humming the tune of the well-known love-ditty under his breath, he raised his glass of wine to his lips and drained it off with a relish, while his honest face beamed with gayety and pleasure. Always the same story, I thought, moodily. Love, the tempter--Love, the destroyer--Love, the curse! Was there NO escape possible from this bewildering snare that thus caught and slew the souls of men?




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