Now Ernest had imagined to himself something so refined, so delicate, so fairy-like, instead of this plain reality, that he all at once began to feel disgusted, and to wish he had acted more prudently. And yet there was Clara, exactly as he had seen her, except that she had exchanged the demure, conventional step adopted by ladies in the street for the free motions of youth; and except that, instead of casting her eyes to the earth, or glancing at him sideways, she now looked toward him with a frank and free gaze, and spoke what came uppermost in her mind. Certes, most men would have chosen that moment to fall in love with so charming a creature; for charming she was beyond all doubt, with large, rich, black eyes, pouting ruby lips, fine oval cheeks, and a mass of ebony hair; but Ernest's first impression was disappointment, and he began to criticise both her and every thing by which she was surrounded. He saw at once that there was poverty in the house. The furniture was neat, but scanty; and the door had been opened by a female servant, who had evidently been disturbed from some domestic avocations. The contessa and her daughter were dressed very plainly--far differently from what they had been in the street; and it was an easy matter to see that this plainness was not adopted from choice but from necessity. Had Clara come into the room with a slow, creeping step, keeping her eyes modestly fixed on the chipped marble floor, not one of these observations would have been made: the large, dreary house would have been a palace in Ernest's eyes; but his taste was a morbid one, and in five minutes after he had begun to give his lesson, he began to fear that the conquest he had so ardently desired would be only too easy. There was something, however, so cheerful and fascinating in Clara's manner that he could not but soon learn to feel pleasure in her society: and when he went away he determined, instead of starting off for Sicily, as he had at first thought of doing, to pay at least one more visit to the house in the character of drawing master. Alfonso joined him as he walked slowly homeward, and asked him how things had passed. He related frankly his first impressions, to which the old man listened very attentively without making any remark. At parting, however, he shook his head, saying that young men were of all animals the most difficult to content.