Maria Rosa is the child of her father, fired at a flash, "deaf, dumb,
and blind" at the touch of passion.


"Does love steal gently o'er our soul?"

she asks;


"What if he come,
A cloud, a fire, a whirlwind?"

and then the cry:


"O my God!
This awful joy in mine own heart is love."

Again:


"While you are here the one thing real to me
In all the universe is love."


Exquisitely tender and refined are the love scenes--at the ball and
in the garden--between the dashing prince-lover in search of his
pleasure and the devoted girl with her heart in her eyes, on her
lips, in her hand. Behind them, always like a tragic fate, the
somber figure of the Spagnoletto, and over all the glow and color