Though I had plenty of acquaintance in the city, I cared little for such entertainment as they could offer me.

As I strolled along through one of the principal streets, considering whether or not I should return on foot to my own dwelling on the heights, I heard a sound of singing, and perceived in the distance a glimmer of white robes.

It was the Month of Mary, and I at once concluded that this must be an approaching Procession of the Virgin.

Half in idleness, half in curiosity, I stood still and waited.

The singing voices came nearer and nearer--I saw the priests, the acolytes, the swinging gold censers heavy with fragrance, the flaring candles, the snowy veils of children and girls--and then all suddenly the picturesque beauty of the scene danced before my eyes in a whirling blur of brilliancy and color from which looked forth--one face! One face beaming out like a star from a cloud of amber tresses--one face of rose-tinted, childlike loveliness--a loveliness absolutely perfect, lighted up by two luminous eyes, large and black as night--one face in which the small, curved mouth smiled half provokingly, half sweetly! I gazed and gazed again, dazzled and excited, beauty makes such fools of us all! This was a woman--one of the sex I mistrusted and avoided--a woman in the earliest spring of her youth, a girl of fifteen or sixteen at the utmost.