"I did not dream in vain. Sitting alone in my balcony one evening, wrapped in gloomy thoughts, and contemplating, almost involuntarily, the moon as she rose slowly above the Pontine marshes, I was startled from my reverie by the noise of something dropping to the ground from the wall surrounding the villa. My heart began to beat violently, but not from fear. I fancied I saw by the dim light a figure emerging from the shrubbery towards me. A friendly ray from the moon illumined the face of the intruder as he approached, and when I beheld the features I had sought for so many days in vain I could not repress a cry of surprise and joy, and it required all my womanly modesty to restrain a violent desire to run down the steps leading to my balcony and embrace him.
"My love of solitude and disdain for the pleasures of the capital had kept me in comparative ignorance of worldly things, and, with good principles, I had remained an ingenuous, simple daughter of nature.
"'Irene,' said a voice which penetrated to the inmost recesses of my soul; 'Irene, may I dare ask for the good fortune to say two words to you either there or here?'
"To descend appeared to me to be more convenient than to permit him to enter the rooms; I therefore went down immediately, and, forgetting, for the moment, his fine speeches, in joy, he covered my hands with burning kisses. Conducting me towards some trees, we sat down upon a wooden bench under their shady branches side by side. He might have led me to the end of the world at that strange and sweet moment had he pleased.
"For a while we remained silent; but presently my deliverer said, 'May I ask pardon for this boldness--will you not grant it, my loved one?' I made no reply, but allowed him to take possession of my hand, which he kissed fervently. Presently he went on: 'I am only a plebeian, Irene--an orphan. Both my parents perished in the defense of Rome against the foreigner. I possess nothing on this earth but my hands and arms, and my love for you, which has made me follow your footsteps.'
"Predisposed to love him even before I had heard his voice, now that his manly yet gentle and impassioned tones fell upon my ear, I felt he might do what he would with me--I was in an Eden. Yes, he belonged to me, and I to him; but I could not find the voice to say so as yet.