the marriage!"
"No; I believe Gaetano is a good lad, and that he will make me happy. Besides, this marriage will enable me to remain with madame la comtesse, and that is my most earnest wish."
"Then why did you sigh?"
"Pray pardon me, my lady, but I was thinking of our native country."
"Our native country!" echoed the countess.
"Yes; madame la comtesse may remember, while at Palermo, that she had left a foster sister at the village of which her father was the signor; and when she wrote for me to come to her, I was about to be married to a young man belonging to Bauso."
"Why did you not tell me of that? The prince, at my recommendation, would have taken him into his service."
"Oh, he would not become a servant," said Teresa; "he was too proud for that."
"Indeed!" said the countess.
"Yes; he had before then refused the situation of shepherd to the Prince of Goto."
"He was a gentleman, then, this young man?"
"No, madame la comtesse; he was but a simple mountaineer," said Teresa, in a melancholy tone.
"What was his name?"
"Oh, I do not think that your ladyship would recollect it," said Teresa, eagerly.
"And do you then regret his loss?"
"I cannot tell; I only know that if I were to become his wife instead of Gaetano's, I should be obliged to work for my living; and that would be a laborious task for me, after leading so easy and pleasant a life under madame la comtesse."
"And yet, Teresa, is it not true that people accuse me of pride and violence?" asked the countess.
"Madame is very good to me, that is all I can say," replied Teresa.
"The nobles of Palermo say so, because the Counts of Castel Nuovo were ennobled by Charles the Fifth, while the Ventimillas and the Partanas descend, as they pretend, from Tancred and Rogero: but that is not the reason the women hate me; they conceal their hatred under the cloak of disdain, and they neglect me because Rodolpho loves me, and they are jealous of the viceroy's love; they do all they can to seduce him from me; but they will never succeed, for my beauty is greater than theirs – Carini tells me so every day, and so do you, story-teller."
"You have here a greater flatterer than either his excellency or myself," said Teresa, archly.
"Who is that?" asked the countess.
"The countess's mirror."
"Foolish girl!" said the countess, with a gratified smile. "There, go and light the tapers of the Psyche." The attendant obeyed her mistress's orders. "Now shut that window, and leave me; there will be sufficient air from the garden."
Teresa obeyed, and left the room. Scarcely did the countess perceive that she was gone, than she seated herself before the Psyche, and smiled as she looked at and admired herself in the glass.
A wonderful creature was the Countess Emma, or rather Gemma, for, from her very infancy, her parents had added a G to her baptismal name; and, on account of this addition, she called herself Diamond. She was certainly wrong in confining her origin to the signature of Charles the Fifth, for in her slight and pliant form, you might recognise an Ionian origin; in her black and expressive eyes, a descendant of the Arabs; and in her fair and vermilion skin, a daughter of Gaul. She could equally boast of her descent from an Athenian archon, a Saracen emir, and a Norman chieftain; she was one of those beauties that in the first instance were found in Sicily alone, at a later time in one town alone in the world – Arles. So that, instead, of calling the artifices of the toilet to her assistance, as she intended in the first instance, Gemma found herself more charming in her partial dishabille.
The glass, being placed before the window that was left open, reflected the sky from its surface, and Gemma, without intention or thought, wrapt herself up in a vague and delicious pleasure, counting in the glass the images of the stars as they each appeared in their turn, and giving them names as they successively appeared in the heavens.
Suddenly it appeared as if a rising shadow placed itself before the stars, and that a face appeared behind her; she turned herself quickly round and beheld a man standing at the window. Gemma rose and opened her mouth with the intention of screaming for assistance, when the stranger, springing into the chamber, clasped his hands, and said in supplicating accents —
"In the name of heaven do not call out, madame! for on my honour, you have nothing to fear: I will do you no harm."
Gemma fell back into her chair, and the apparition and words of the stranger were succeeded by a moment's silence, during which she had time to cast a rapid glance at the person who had introduced himself into her room in this extraordinary manner.
He was a young man, some twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, and appeared to belong to the ranks of the people; he wore a Calabrian hat, round which a piece of velvet was tied, the ends of which fell loosely on his shoulders, a velvet vest with silver buttons, breeches of the same material, and ornamented in a similar manner; round his waist he wore a red silk belt with green fringe; shoes and leather gaiters completed his costume, which appeared to have been selected to set off his fine figure to advantage. His features possessed a kind of savage beauty, his look was bold and proud, his beard black, his teeth sharp and white, and his nose aquiline.
For a certainty, Gemma was not a whit the more easy by her examination, for the stranger, when he saw her stretch out her hand towards the table, as if to take hold of the silver bell, said —
"Did you not hear me, madame?" giving his voice that gentle expression so peculiar to the Sicilian dialect. "I wish you no harm – far from it. If you will grant me the request I am about to make, I will adore you as if you were a Madonna. You are already as beautiful; be as good as one."
"But what is it you require?" said Gemma, her voice still trembling; "and why did you come here in this manner, and at such an hour?"
"Had I requested the favour of an interview with one so noble, so rich, and so much loved by a man who is almost a king, is it probable that you would have granted it to me, so poor and unknown? Tell me, madame. But even if you had been so condescending, you might have delayed your answer, and I have no time to wait."
"What, then, can I do for you?" said Gemma, recovering herself by degrees.
"Everything, madame; for you hold in your hands my despair or my happiness – my death or my life."
"I do not understand you; explain yourself," faltered out the countess.
"You have," said the stranger, "a young woman from Bauso in your service."
"Teresa?" asked the countess.
"Yes, Teresa," replied the young man in trembling accents. "Now, this young woman is to be married to a valet de chambre of the Prince de Carini, and she is betrothed to me."
"Ah! it is you, then?" said the countess.
"Yes, it was I she was about to marry when she received your letter desiring her to come to you. She promised to remain faithful to me – to mention me to you, and if you refused her request, she pledged her word to return to me. I continued to expect her; but three years passed by, and yet I saw her not; and as she has not returned to me, I have come to seek her. On my arrival
