"Yer did, did yer!" There was scorn in her voice. "Wot do I know 'bout the thayertre?--Oh, but yer green!" She broke into another merry laugh which, together with the patronage of her words and certain unsavory memories of his own, nettled Champney more than he would have cared to acknowledge. "Better 'n the thayertre," she repeated emphatically; "and the lords serenade the ladies--Do yer know wot a serenade is?" She interrupted herself to ask the question with a strong doubt in the interrogation. "I've heard of 'em," said Champney meekly; "but I don't think I've ever seen one." "I'll tell yer 'bout 'em. The lords have guitars and go out in the moonlight and stand under the ladies' windys and play, and the ladies make believe they haven't heard; then they look up all round at the moon and sigh _awful_,--" she sighed in sympathy,--"and then the lords begin to sing and tell 'em they love 'em and can't live without a--a token. I'll bet yer don't know wot that is?" "No, of course I don't; I'm not a lord, and I don't live in Italy." "Well, I'll tell yer." Her tone was one of relenting indulgence for his ignorance. "Sometimes it's a bow that they make out of the ribbon their dresses is trimmed with, and sometimes it's a flower, a rose, yer know; and the lord sings again--can yer sing?" Her companion repressed a smile. "I can manage a tune or two at a pinch." "And the lady comes out on the balcony and leans over--like this, yer know;" she jumped up and leaned over the rail of the float, keeping her hands well in front of her to save her apron; "and she listens and keeps looking, and when he sings he's going to die because he loves her so, she throws the token down to him to let him know he mustn't die 'coz she loves him too; and he catches it, the rose, yer know, and smells it and then he kisses it and squeezes it against his heart--" she forgot her greasy hands in the rapture of this imaginative flight, and pressed them theatrically over her gingham apron beneath which her own little organ was pulsing quick with the excitement of this telling moment; "--and then the moon shines just as bright as silver and--and she marries him." She drew a deep breath. During the recital she had lost herself in the personating of the favorite characters from her one novel. While she stood there looking out on the lake and the Flamsted Hills with eyes that were still seeing the gardens and marble terraces of Isola Bella, Champney Googe had time to fix that picture on his mental retina and, recalling it in after years, knew that the impression was "more lasting than bronze." She came rather suddenly to herself when she grew aware of her larded hands pressed against her clean apron.