And speedily--more speedily than in our own clime--came the twilight, and, brightening through its gray transparency, the stars.
A swarm of minute insects that had been hovering all day round the battlements were now swept away by the freshness of a rising breeze.
The two owls in the chamber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft melancholy cry,--which, with national avoidance of harsh sounds, Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their kindred in other countries,--and flew darkling forth among the shrubbery.

A convent bell rang out near at hand, and was not only echoed among the hills, but answered by another bell, and still another, which doubtless had farther and farther responses, at various distances along the valley; for, like the English drumbeat around the globe, there is a chain of convent bells from end to end, and crosswise, and in all possible directions over priest-ridden Italy.
"Come," said the sculptor, "the evening air grows cool.

It is time to descend." "Time for you, my friend," replied the Count; and he hesitated a little before adding, "I must keep a vigil here for some hours longer.

It is my frequent custom to keep vigils,--and sometimes the thought occurs to me whether it were not better to keep them in yonder convent, the bell of which just now seemed to summon me.

Should I do wisely, do you think, to exchange this old tower for a cell ?" "What! Turn monk ?" exclaimed his friend.