priests, the acolytes, the swinging gold censers heavy with
fragrance, the flaring candles, the snowy veils of children and
girls--and then all suddenly the picturesque beauty of the scene
danced before my eyes in a whirling blur of brilliancy and color
from which looked forth--one face! One face beaming out like a star
from a cloud of amber tresses--one face of rose-tinted, childlike
loveliness--a loveliness absolutely perfect, lighted up by two
luminous eyes, large and black as night--one face in which the
small, curved mouth smiled half provokingly, half sweetly! I gazed
and gazed again, dazzled and excited, beauty makes such fools of us
all! This was a woman--one of the sex I mistrusted and avoided--a
woman in the earliest spring of her youth, a girl of fifteen or
sixteen at the utmost. Her veil had been thrown back by accident or
design, and for one brief moment I drank in that soul-tempting
glance, that witch-like smile! The procession passed--the vision
faded--but in that breath of time one epoch of my life had closed
forever, and another had begun!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Of course I married her. We Neapolitans lose no time in such
matters. We are not prudent. Unlike the calm blood of Englishmen,
ours rushes swiftly through our veins--it is warm as wine and
sunlight, and needs no fictitious stimulant. We love, we desire, we
possess; and then? We tire, you say? These southern races are so
fickle! All wrong--we are less tired than you deem. And do not
Englishmen tire? Have they no secret ennui at times when sitting in
the chimney nook of "home, sweet home," with their fat wives and
ever-spreading families? Truly, yes! But they are too cautious to
say so.