In those days I did not linger long at the tables of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti: but would hurry back to my little Roman parlor—the fire was so pleasant! And it was so pleasant to greet Enrica with her mother, even before the one-eyed _maestro_ had come in; and it was pleasant to unfold the book between us, and to lay my hand upon the page—a small page—where hers lay already. And when she pointed wrong, it was pleasant to correct her—over and over; insisting that her hand should be here, and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one page, and putting them down upon the other. And sometimes, half provoked with my fault-finding she would pat my hand smartly with hers; but when I looked in her face to know what _that_ could mean, she would meet my eye with such a kind submission, and half earnest regret, as made me not only pardon the offense—but tempt me to provoke it again. Through all the days of Carnival, when I rode pelted with _confetti_, and pelting back, my eyes used to wander up, from a long way off, to that tall house upon the Corso, where I was sure to meet, again and again, those forgiving eyes and that soft brown hair, all gathered under the little brown sombrero, set off with one pure white plume. And her hand full of bon-bons, she would shake at me threateningly; and laugh—a musical laugh—as I bowed my head to the assault, and recovering from the shower of missiles, would turn to throw my stoutest bouquet at her balcony. At night I would bear home to the Roman parlor my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon for Enrica; and Enrica would be sure to render in acknowledgment, some carefully hidden flowers, the prettiest that her beauty had won. [Illustration] Sometimes upon those Carnival nights, she arrays herself in the costume of the Albanian water-carriers; and nothing, one would think, could be prettier than the laced crimson jacket, and the strange headgear with its trinkets, and the short skirts leaving to view as delicate an ankle as could be found in Rome. Upon another night, she glides into my little parlor, as we sit by the blaze, in a close velvet bodice, and with a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver, and adorned with a full-blown rose—nothing you think could be prettier than this. Again, in one of her girlish freaks, she robes herself like a nun; and with the heavy black serge, for dress, and the funereal veil—relieved only by the plain white ruffle of her cap—you wish she were always a nun. But the wish vanishes, when you see her in a pure white muslin, with a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead, and a single white rose-bud in her bosom.