'Will you allow me, father ?' said Carmela.--'Certainly,' replied the count, 'are we not in Carnival time ?'--Carmela turned towards the young man who was talking with her, and saying a few words to him, pointed with her finger to Teresa.

The young man looked, bowed in obedience, and then went to Teresa, and invited her to dance in a quadrille directed by the count's daughter.

Teresa felt a flush pass over her face; she looked at Luigi, who could not refuse his assent.
Luigi slowly relinquished Teresa's arm, which he had held beneath his own, and Teresa, accompanied by her elegant cavalier, took her appointed place with much agitation in the aristocratic quadrille.

Certainly, in the eyes of an artist, the exact and strict costume of Teresa had a very different character from that of Carmela and her companions; and Teresa was frivolous and coquettish, and thus the embroidery and muslins, the cashmere waist-girdles, all dazzled her, and the reflection of sapphires and diamonds almost turned her giddy brain.
"Luigi felt a sensation hitherto unknown arising in his mind.

It was like an acute pain which gnawed at his heart, and then thrilled through his whole body.