The white bird flutters rapidly; it circles and takes its flight.

The voice seemed to be as little the singer's own.
The theme was as follows:--Camilla has dreamed overnight that her lost mother came to her bedside to bless her nuptials.

Her mother was folded in a black shroud, looking formless as death, like very death, save that death sheds no tears.

She wept, without change of voice, or mortal shuddering, like one whose nature weeps: 'And with the forth-flowing of her tears the knowledge of her features was revealed to me.' Behold the Adige, the Mincio, Tiber, and the Po!--such great rivers were the tears pouring from her eyes.

She threw apart the shroud: her breasts and her limbs were smooth and firm as those of an immortal Goddess: but breasts and limbs showed the cruel handwriting of base men upon the body of a martyred saint.