We subsequently became well acquainted with our gifted countryman, and a right good fellow he proved. We met him constantly in society, while at Florence—the Italian Paradise of Americans, as Miss —— always called it—where his genial manners, the type of a genial nature, made him a general favorite, as well with natives as foreigners.
Soon after he was named to me that day on the Campagna, your cousin, who had again moved from my side, turned her face towards us. The movement arrested the attention of my companion—he glanced inquiringly at me.
"I think I am not mistaken, sir; have we not met before?" and the same exquisite courtesy illumined his face that had so impressed me previously. "May I ask the honor of a presentation to my sometime prisoner?"
"Really, sir," I overheard Grace confessing, in her sprightliest tones, as, the two parties uniting for the nonce, we all rode on together; "really, sir, I remember to have been secretly rejoiced at having left my heart, watch, and other valuables, safely locked up at home, when I found myself in such a dangerous-looking neighborhood."
"And I still indulge the regret that my profession did not fully entitle me to retain possession, not only of the shawl, which, no doubt, was a camel's hair of unknown value, but of the embodied poetry it enwrapped."
"You seem quite to overlook the fact that I was guarded, like a damsel of old, by a doughty knight."
I wish I could half describe the dextrous twirl of the moustache, and the quickly-shadowed brow that suddenly transformed that luminous and honest face into that of the dark, moody brigand, as, fumbling in his bosom the while, as about to unsheath a dagger, he growled, in mock-heroic manner—"It were easy to find means to silence such an opponent, with such a reward in view!"
The merry laugh with which Grace received this sally, proved that she, at least, liked the versatility of manner possessed by her gallant attendant.
Touching the electric chain of memory, causes another link to vibrate, and I am reminded of my promise, made in a former letter, to tell you about the American girl whose beautiful arm threw Powers into raptures.