CHAPTER VII.


She was seated outside her door, the young actress. The sea, which in
that heavenly bay literally seems to sleep in the arms of the shore,
bounded the view in front; while to the right, not far off, rose the
dark and tangled crags to which the traveller of to-day is daily brought
to gaze on the tomb of Virgil, or compare with the Cavern of Pausilippo
the archway of Highgate Hill. There were a few fishermen loitering by
the cliffs, on which their nets were hung up to dry; and, at a distance,
the sound of some rustic pipe (more common at that day than in this),
mingled now and then with the bells of the lazy mules, broke the
voluptuous silence,--the silence of declining noon on the shores of
Naples. Never till you have enjoyed it, never till you have felt its
enervating but delicious charm, believe that you can comprehend all the
meaning of the dolce far niente; and when that luxury has been known,
when you have breathed the atmosphere of fairy land, then you will no
longer wonder why the heart ripens with so sudden and wild a power
beneath the rosy skies and amidst the glorious foliage of the South.

The young actress was seated by the door of her house; overhead a rude
canvas awning sheltered her from the sun; on her lap lay the manuscript
of a new part in which she was shortly to appear. By her side was the
guitar on which she had been practising the airs that were to ravish the
ears of the cognoscenti. But the guitar had been thrown aside in
despair; her voice this morning did not obey her will. The manuscript
lay unheeded, and the eyes of the actress were fixed on the broad, blue
deep beyond. In the unwonted negligence of her dress might be traced