and well-trained voice. She sung with exquisite expression, and many
an evening when Guido and myself sat smoking in the garden, after
little Stella had gone to bed, Nina would ravish our ears with the
music of her nightingale notes, singing song after song, quaint
stornelli and ritornelli--songs of the people, full of wild and
passionate beauty. In these Guido would often join her, his full
barytone chiming in with her delicate and clear soprano as
deliciously as the fall of a fountain with the trill of a bird. I
can hear those two voices now; their united melody still rings
mockingly in my ears; the heavy perfume of orange-blossom, mingled
with myrtle, floats toward me on the air; the yellow moon burns
round and full in the dense blue sky, like the King of Thule's
goblet of gold flung into a deep sea, and again I behold those two
heads leaning together, the one fair, the other dark; my wife, my
friend--those two whose lives were a million times dearer to me than
my own. Ah! they were happy days--days of self-delusion always are.
We are never grateful enough to the candid persons who wake us from
our dream--yet such are in truth our best friends, could we but
realize it.

August was the most terrible of all the summer months in Naples. The
cholera increased with frightful steadiness, and the people seemed
to be literally mad with terror. Some of them, seized with a wild
spirit of defiance, plunged into orgies of vice and intemperance
with a reckless disregard of consequences. One of these frantic
revels took place at a well-known cafe. Eight young men, accompanied
by eight girls of remarkable beauty, arrived, and ordered a private
room, where they were served with a sumptuous repast. At its close
one of the party raised his glass and proposed, "Success to the
cholera!" The toast was received with riotous shouts of applause,