By one decided pull, the student tore the bandage from his eyes and gazed around him in wonder and bewilderment. He was alone in a spacious and magnificent apartment, whose walls were tapestried with striped blue and white satin, and whose carved ceiling was richly gilt and decorated. The tall Venetian mirrors, the costly furniture, the beautifully fine Indian matting, every thing in the room, in short, convinced him that he was in the favoured abode of wealth, and rank, and luxury. A lamp, suspended by silver chains, shed a soft light over the apartment. Federico's position was a doubtful, probably a dangerous one; but love emboldened him, and he felt the truth of a saying of Geronimo's, that courage grows with peril. Happen what might, there he was, and he knew no fear. The only perceptible exit from the room was by the large, folding-doors through which he had entered. He tried them--they were fastened. His mother-wit suggested to him that his retreat had perhaps been thus cut off, that he might seek another outlet. He did so, and presently perceived hinges under the tapestry. A silver handle protruded from the wall; he grasped it, a door opened, and a cry of astonishment and delight burst from the student. Beaming with loveliness, a blush upon her cheek, a soft smile upon her rosy lips, the lady of his thoughts stood before him. For a moment the pair gazed at each other in silence, their looks telling more eloquently than any words, the love that filled their hearts. But soon Federico started from his brief trance, threw himself at the feet of the incognita, and, seizing her hand, pressed it ardently to his lips, murmuring the while, in low and passionate accents, such broken and rapturous sentences as only lovers speak and love alone can comprehend. The lady stood over him, her graceful form slightly bowed, her large lustrous eyes alternately fixed upon the kneeling youth and roving anxiously round the apartment. "Don Federico," she said, in tones whose sweetness thrilled his blood, "may the Holy Virgin forgive my unmaidenly boldness. I have yielded to an impulse stronger than my reason, to the desire of seeing you, of hearing--" "That I love you," interrupted Federico--"that I adore you since the first hour I beheld you,--that I will die at your feet if you refuse me hope!" She bent forward, and laid her small rosy hand upon his throbbing forehead. The touch was electric, the fiery glow of passion flashed in her glance. "Light of my eyes!" she whispered, "it were vain to deny that my heart is thine. But our love is a flower on the precipice's brink." "I fear not the fall," Federico impetuously exclaimed. "Dare you risk every thing?" "For your love, every thing!" was the enthusiastic reply. "Listen, then, to the difficulties that beset us, and say if they are surmountable." The maiden paused, started, grew pale.