To right and left the long, straight stems rose in rank, and bore their floral crown of listening lilies, calm, majestic, pure, and only stirring now and then when the wind shook a waft of gold-dust down the shining leaf, or rifled the inmost heart of its delicious wealth of odor; on either side of the path the snowy bloom lay like a fallen cloud. "It is a company of angels," said Luigi, brokenly, "a cloud of seraphs with their gold harps! If they should sing," hazarded he, "it would be the song the Signorina gave me,--alas, it is long since!" "It is a week," said she, laughing and lingering. "Eve!" came a warning voice. "That is the Signorina's name?" questioned Luigi, as he bent to help her cut the stems. "Eve,--yes, they call me so." "Certainly I had not thought it," he repeated to himself. "Why, what did you suppose it was?" she heedlessly asked. "_Luigia!_" said he. And his low, rapt tone was indescribably simple, sweet, and intense. Eve did not know what the boy himself was called. "I wish it were," said she. "That is a pleasant sound." And rising with her armful, she went in and heaped the jar with honor, while Luigi, pleased and proud, lifted it to the level of the black-walnut bracket. "Signora, behold what is beautiful!" said he, stepping back. The Signora looked at the lilies, but Luigi looked at Eve. They had lunched. Eve went into the other room to her exercises. Her mother poured out a glass of wine for the unbidden guest. He repulsed it with an angry eye and a disdainful gesture. But then there rose the sound of Eve's voice just beyond;--while he stayed, he could listen. With sudden change from frown to smile, he stepped forward and took the plate. "To the Signora's health," said he, with a courtesy that sat well on the supple shape and the dark beauty of the boy, whose homely garb, whose poverty, and whose profession seemed only the disguise of some young prince,--and sipped the wine, and broke the fine, white bread, while his cheek was scarlet with delight at recurrence of the familiar sounds, even though in such simple phrase. "That is a proud boy," said Eve's mother, when he had gone, and she paused a moment to see how Eve went on. "He urges no one." "Italy is full of its troubles, _mia madre_. He is the exile of a noble family,--no other beggar would be so haughty," looked up and answered Eve, laughing between her bars. "Mamma, what different beings different meridians make!" she exclaimed, dropping her music. "Is he so sweet and lofty and fiery because he has lived in the shadow of old temples,--because, if he stumbled over a pebble in the street, it was the marble fragment of a goddess,--because the clay of which he is made has so many times been moulded into heroes?" "Are there no further fancies with which you can invest an image-vender?"