"_Die Luft ist kuhl und es
dunkelt, und ruhig fliesset der Rhein._" Was it, indeed, Kathchen and
her mother? Were they far away in the beautiful pine-land, with the
quiet evening shining red over the green woods, and darkness coming over
the pale streams in the hollows? When Natalie Lind ceased, the elder of
the two guests murmured to himself, "Wonderful! wonderful!" The other
did not speak at all.
She rested her hands for a moment on the table.
"Natalushka," said her father, "is that all?"
"I will not be called Natalushka, papa," said she; but again she bent
her hands over the silver strings.
And these brighter and gayer airs now--surely they are from the laughing
and light-hearted South? Have we not heard them under the cool shade of
the olive-trees, with the hot sun blazing on the garden-paths of the
Villa Reale; and the children playing; and the band busy with its
dancing _canzoni_, the gay notes drowning the murmur and plash of the
fountains near? Look now!--far beneath the gray shadow of the
olive-trees--the deep blue band of the sea; and there the double-sailed
barca, like a yellow butterfly hovering on the water; and there the
large martingallo, bound for the cloud-like island on the horizon.
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