Nevertheless, the Count is still in his usual place—in the old court, and reclining on the rustic bench beside his Picciola! But at the grating of the little window appeared the momentary glimpse of a female form! A soft and melancholy countenance, half hid in shade, seems gazing upon him; but when, rising from his seat, he hastens towards it, the vision vanishes, or rather the young girl hastens from the window. However swift her disappearance, Charney was able to distinguish her features, her hair, her form, the whiteness of her robe. He paused. Is he asleep, or waking? Can it be that the insurmountable obstacle which divides him from Picciola is no other than the grating of a prison? At that moment Ludovico hastens towards him with an air of consternation. “Are you again indisposed, _Signor Conte_?” cried the jailer. “Have you had another attack of your old disorder? _Trondidio!_ If we are obliged, for form’s sake, to send for the prison doctor, I’ll take care, _this_ time, that no one but Madame Picciola and myself have a hand in the cure!” “I am perfectly well,” replied Charney, trying to recover his composure. “What put it into your head that I was indisposed?” “The fly-catcher’s daughter came in search of me. She saw you stagger, and hearing you cry aloud, fancied you were in need of assistance.” The Count relapsed into a fit of musing. It seemed to occur to him, for the first time, that a young girl occasionally inhabited that part of the prison. “The resemblance I fancied I could discover between the stranger and Picciola, is doubtless a new delusion!” said he to himself. And he now recalled to mind Teresa’s interest in his favour, mentioned to him by the venerable Girardi. The young Piedmontese had compassionated his condition during his illness. To _her_ he is indebted for the possession of his microscope. His heart becomes suddenly touched with gratitude, and in the first effusion, a sudden remark seems to sever the double image, the young girl of his dreams, from the young girl of his waking hours; “Girardi’s daughter wore no flower in her hair.” That moment, but not without hesitation, not without self-reproach, he plucked with a trembling hand from his plant a small branch covered with blossoms. “Formerly,” thought Charney, “what sums of money did I lavish to adorn, with gold and gems, brows devoted to perjury and shame! upon how many abandoned women and heartless men did I throw away my fortune, without caring more for them than for the feelings of my own bosom, which, at the same moment, I placed in the dust under their feet! Oh, if a gift derives its value from the regard in which it is held by the donor, never was a richer token offered by man to woman, my Picciola, than these flowers which I borrow from thy precious branches to bestow on the daughter of Girardi!”