Luigi now hurried his bride to the house they were to occupy. Their modest apartment was soon reached; and there, when the door closed upon them, Luigi took his wife in his arms, exclaiming,—
“Oh, my Ginevra! for now you are mine, here is our true wedding. Here,” he added, “all things will smile upon us.”
Together they went through the three rooms contained in their lodging. The room first entered served as salon and dining-room in one; on the right was a bedchamber, on the left a large study which Luigi had arranged for his wife; in it she found easels, color-boxes, lay-figures, casts, pictures, portfolios,—in short, the paraphernalia of an artist.
“So here I am to work!” she said, with an expression of childlike happiness.
She looked long at the hangings and the furniture, turning again and again to thank Luigi, for there was something that approached magnificence in the little retreat. A bookcase contained her favorite books; a piano filled an angle of the room. She sat down upon a divan, drew Luigi to her side, and said, in a caressing voice, her hand in his,—
“You have good taste.”
“Those words make me happy,” he replied.
“But let me see all,” said Ginevra, to whom Luigi had made a mystery of the adornment of the rooms.
They entered the nuptial chamber, fresh and white as a virgin.
“Oh! come away,” said Luigi, smiling.