It was dark in the chapel when we went out; voices were low. Enrica said nothing—I could say nothing. I was to leave Rome after Easter; I did not love to speak of it—nor to think of it. Rome—that old city, with all its misery, and its fallen state, and its broken palaces of the empire—grows upon one’s heart. The fringing shrubs of the coliseum, flaunting their blossoms at the tall beggar-men in cloaks who grub below—the sun glimmering over the mossy pile of the House of Nero—the sweet sunsets from the Pincian, that make the broad pine-tops of the Janiculan stand sharp and dark against a sky of gold, can not easily be left behind. And Enrica, with her silver-brown hair, and the silken fillet that bound it, and her deep hazel eyes, and her white, delicate fingers, and the blue veins chasing over her fair temples—ah, Easter is too near! But it comes, and passes with the glory of St. Peter’s—lighted from top to bottom. With Enrica, I saw it from the Ripetta, as it loomed up in the distance, like a city on fire. The next day I bring home my last bunch of flowers, and with it a little richly-chased Roman ring. No fire blazes on the hearth, but they are all there. Warm days have come, and the summer air, even now, hangs heavy with fever in the hollows of the plain. I heard them stirring early on the morning of which I was to go away. I do not think I slept very well myself—nor very late. Never did Enrica look more beautiful—never. All her carnival robes and the sad drapery of the FRIDAY OF CRUCIFIXION could not so adorn her beauty as that neat morning dress and that simple rosebud she wore upon her bosom. She gave it to me—the last—with a trembling hand. I did not, for I could not, thank her. She knew it; and her eyes were full. The old man kissed my cheek—it was the Roman custom, but the custom did not extend to the Roman girls; at least not often. As I passed down the Corso I looked back at the balcony, where she stood in the time of Carnival in the brown sombrero with the white plume. I knew she would be there now; and there she was. My eyes dwelt upon the vision, very loth to leave it; and after my eyes had lost it, my heart clung to it—there, where my memory clings now. At noon the carriage stopped upon the hills, toward Soracte, that overlooked Rome. There was a stunted pine tree grew a little way from the road, and I sat down under it—for I wished no dinner—and I looked back with strange tumult of feeling upon the sleeping city, with the gray, billowy sea of the Campagna lying around it. I seemed to see Enrica, the Roman girl, in that morning dress, with her brown hair in its silken fillet; but the rosebud that was in her bosom was now in mine. Her silvery voice, too, seemed to float past me, bearing snatches of Roman songs; but the songs were sad and broken.