Everything was combined in the lovely body posing before him;--delicacy and strength, form and coloring, the outlines of a Grecian statue of the most glorious days of the art, and the tones of a Titian.--He saw there, palpable and crystallized, the misty chimera he had tried so many times to check in its flight--he was not compelled, as he had complained so bitterly to his friend Silvio, to confine his glances to some special well-formed portion of the body, and not to look beyond it, under penalty of seeing something horrible, and his amorous eyes descended from the head to the feet and ascended from the feet to the head, always softly caressed by a harmonious, correctly proportioned line. The knees were wonderfully pure, the ankles slender and shapely, the legs and thighs built upon a noble, superb model, the belly as lustrous as agate, the hips supple and strong, a bosom that might well tempt the gods to come down from heaven to kiss it, arms and shoulders of the most magnificent shape;--a torrent of beautiful brown hair, curling slightly, as in the heads drawn by the old masters, fell in tiny waves along a back of polished ivory, marvellously heightening the effect of its whiteness. The painter satisfied, the lover gained the upper hand; for, however great one's love of art, there are things which one cannot long remain contented in looking at. He took the fair one in his arms and carried her to the bed; in a twinkling he had undressed himself and jumped in beside her. Our fair reader of the gentler sex would surely look askance at her lover if we should disclose the formidable figure attained by D'Albert's love, assisted by Rosalind's curiosity. Let her remember the most completely filled and the most delightful of her own nights, the night when--the night she would remember a hundred thousand days if she did not die long before; let her put the book beside her and count upon her pretty white fingers how many times he who loved her best loved her that night, and thus fill the gap which we leave in this glorious history.