She was then but thirteen.

In all that it beseems a woman to know, she is no less skilled.

Yonder lies her cithern; she learnt to touch it, I scarce know how, out of mere desire to soothe my melancholy, and I suspect--though she will not avow it--that the music she plays is often her own.

In sickness she has tended me with skill as rare as her gentleness; her touch on the hot forehead is like that of a flower plucked before sunrise.

Hearing me speak thus of her, what think you, O Basil, must be my trust in the man to whom I would give her for wife ?' 'Can you doubt my love, O Aurelia ?' cried the listener, clasping his hands before him.
'Your love?
No.