Youthful, lovely, light as air.”
As soon as she perceived me she stopt abruptly, blushed, and returning my salutation, advanced to the priest, and twining her arm familiarly in his, said, with an air of playful tenderness,
“O! I have brought you something you will be glad to see—here is the spring’s first violet, which the unusual chilliness of the season has suffered to steal into existence: this morning as I gathered herbs at the foot of the mountain, I inhaled its odour ere I discovered its purple head, as solitary and unassociated it was drooping beneath the heavy foliage of a neighbouring plant.
“It is but just you should have the first violet as my father has already had the first snowdrop. Receive, then, my offering,” she added with a smile; and while she fondly placed it in his breast with an air of exquisite naivette, to my astonishment she repeated from B. Tasso, those lines so consonant to the tender simplicity of the act in which she was engaged:
“Poiche d’altro honorate
Non dosso, prendi lieta
Queste negre viole
Dall umor rugiadose.”
The priest gazed at her with looks of parental affection, and said,
“Your offering, my dear, is indeed the