"Now will I bring thee, as I have heretofore done, to the Countess, only by a shorter way," said she, took his hand, led him out, opened the opposite apartment, where Linda lived, and said, "I present to thee my brother." Deeply blushing, the noble form came to meet them, and embraced, without a word, her dear female friend. When her eye met again Albano's, she was so struck that she sought to draw away the hand which he kissed, for she had yesterday hardly seen but in a glimmering light his beautiful eye, and his noble brow, and the lips of love; and this blooming man stood, inspired with double emotion, so bright and still and earnest before her, full of noble, real love. Her heart would gladly have fallen upon his; at least, she gave him back her hand into his, and wished him joy of this morning. The obvious answer, "and of yesterday evening," he could not get over his lips, from a peculiar, modest shyness, of giving as of taking praise. "A third man is found at last for the travelling-college," said Julienne; "for thou must go off directly, in a few days; thou, too, must be off to Pestitz, Albano." "I, too, sister?" said he; "I meant to stay a month, and here is the visit of Vesuvius, Herculaneum, and Naples crowded into a few days." He wondered afterwards himself at the sweetness of obedience under the fair commands of love, since he used once to say, "Command me to command, and I will not obey." "I accompany my friend," said Linda, "glad as I should have been to go to Greece, to which I am already, for the second time, so near." "This very night I fly away," said he; "I will only wake, see, live, and love." Julienne had already begun to show a sister's concern about his health and his objects; divided between two brothers, gladly would she, had it only been possible, have sacrificed herself to both. "The good creature has not even yet enjoyed Ischia," said she; "he must have that to-day." Albano felt, at the expression of this new female love, that woman was the human heart in the fairest form. Within him rang a glad melody,--"What a day lies before thee, and what years!" Sweetly entwined and overspun with a canopy of double love-blossoms, he saw life and earth full of fragrance and light; over the morning dew of youth a sun had now been ushered up, and the dark drops glistened up and down through all gardens. He cast, at length, a glance at the place which surrounded him. Niobe's group, the Genius of Turin, Cupid, and Psyche, stood there in casts, borrowed from the cabinet of an artist in Naples. The walls were decorated with rare pictures, among which was--Schoppe sneezing. This alone rushed with the northern past mightily into his softened heart, and he expressed his feeling to his beloved. "You," said she, "prefer friendship to art, for that portrait is the worst in my collection; but the original deserves, indeed, all regard."