"The music ceased, but it died in cadences so soft that I stood with lips apart, half in doubt whether the spirit-sound I yet heard were the effect of imagination or not. Reluctantly I was compelled to believe myself deceived, and then turned to look upon the landscape. I never remember of seeing a lovelier night. It was now nine o'clock, and the sounds of business were hushed on the harbor, but boats, filled with gay revelers, glided ever the sparkling surface of the water, whose laugh and song added interest and life to the scene. Nearly opposite to us, upon the other side of the bay, were the extensive barracks, hospital, and the long line of the Marino, their white stuccoed walls glowing in the moonlight. On our left the beautiful city rose like an amphitheatre around the head of the bay; the hum of the populace, and the rumbling of wheels sounding faintly in the distance. Behind the town the blue conical peaks of the mountains melted into the sky. On our right was the roadstead and open sea, the moon's wake thereon glittering like a street in heaven, and reaching far away to other lands. All around us grew a wilderness of palm, orange, cocoa, and magnolia trees, vocal with the thousand strange noises of a tropical night. Directly below us, but a cable length from the overhanging palms which fringed the shore, lay a heavy English corvette in the deep shade of the land; but the arms of the sentry on her forecastle glinted in the moonbeams as he paced his lonely watch, and sung out, as the bell struck twice, his accustomed long-drawn cry of 'All's well!' Just beyond her, in saucy propinquity, lay a slaver, bound for the coast of Africa--a beautiful, graceful craft. Still farther out the crew of a clumsy French brig were chanting the evening hymn to the Virgin. Ships from every civilized country lay anchored, in picturesque groups, in all directions, and far down, her tall white spars standing in bold and graceful relief against the dark, gray walls of San Severino, I recognized my own beautiful craft, sitting like a swan in the water; and still farther, in the deep water of the roadstead, lay an American line-of-battle ship, her lofty sides flashing brightly in the moonlight, and her frowning batteries turned menacingly toward the old castle, telling a plain bold tale of our country's power and glory, and making my heart proud within me that I was an American sailor. "'Say,' again asked Clara, in a low, hushed voice, 'saw you ever aught so lovely in your own land?' "To tell the truth, I had forgotten my sweet companion for a moment. 'I am sorry,' said I, taking her hand, 'very sorry, that you think the United States so unenviable a place of residence. I hope, dear lady, to persuade you to make it your home.' "The small hand I clasped trembled in mine.