who offered to conduct us through the building. She led us through a series of lofty rooms, splendidly painted, gilded, frescoed, and furnished with inlaid tables and polished chairs. On either side were ranged large vases, in which grew what I seemed instinctively to recognize by the name of the Lace Mimosa--each plant consisting of a flat sheet of green lace-work, like a coralline, studded with lovely pale yellow blossoms. Passing through three such rooms, we entered a fourth, across the floor of which our fair guide whirled herself with a pirouette into the presence of a young woman clad in a richly figured dressing-gown, drawn lightly around her form as she sat in an easy chair, nursing her baby. We were formally introduced to this lady, who received us with the most evident indifference, a circumstance which gave us no concern, for the view from the open window at once engrossed my attention. Directly before me was a shining river, pouring down the mountain side and falling about fifteen feet into a deep dark pool that widened beneath the window from which I gazed. High banks, covered with magnificent trees, sloped down into the water, and cast their shadows across its rippling surface, forming a most charming landscape. The breadth of the scene, the depth of the coloring, the perfection and the multiplicity of all the details that pressed upon the attention, could not have been surpassed in vividness by any real existence. I was admiring the view, and was beginning to feel surprised that so large a river could exist in such a place, when I was suddenly awakened by a renewal of the intermittent pain.