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They were radiant with happiness, and I could hardly tell which I loved best, my boy or my girl; but if the Italian had been there to ask if I ever saw a more beautiful couple, I should have answered no with great emphasis. I will copy Helen's first letter in order to prove that a château en Espagne is not always a castle in the air: "ALVALA, near Toledo, June 20, 1872.
One evening, while we were waiting for one of the endless courses of a table-d'hôte dinner, my wandering eyes were caught by the most perfect human head I had ever seen. It seemed that of the youthful Lord Byron, so well known in busts and engravings the same small head with high forehead and clustering dark-brown curls, the perfectly-moulded chin, the full, ripe beauty of the lips. The eyes were a deep blue, but I thought them black at first, they were so darkly shaded by the thick black lashes. I am convinced that Byron must have had just such eyes, for some of his biographers describe them as black and others as blue. When he rose from the table I saw a slight, well-knit figure of exquisite proportions, like the Greek god of love. (Not Cupid with his vulgar arrows, but the true heavenly Eros. I saw him once in the Museum at Naples, and again in the Vatican. Is it Love, or Death, or Immortality? I queried, and then I knew it was the three in one.) I soon learned that the youth whose ideal beauty had impressed me so strongly was the Count Francisco de Alvala of Toledo in Spain. I fancy that his eyes were as easily attracted to beauty as mine, for the next day he was my vis-
His presence was like a poem in my life, and if it ever occurred to me that the familiar intercourse of the young people might not be altogether prudent, I dismissed it with the thought, He is only a boy. There was to be an illumination of the Coliseum. We were going of course, and Count Alvala begged that I would honor him by making use of his carriage on this occasion.
Clair that on the 23d of April, being his twenty-first birthday, the marriage of the conde de Alvala and Helen St. Clair was duly celebrated. I could not leave my school to be present at the wedding, but the young couple came to Boston to take leave of me before sailing for Europe.
Early in October a servant handed me a card bearing the name Francisco Alvala. I had ceased to think of the boy, not having heard a word from him; but here he was, looking very manly, browned with the sun and sea, and beautiful as Endymion when Diana stooped to kiss him and all the green leaves in the white moonshine were tremulous with sympathy.
A week later, on our return from the convent of San Marco, where we had seen the cell of Savonarola and many lovely but faded frescoes of Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, whom should we find waiting for us in our temporary home on the Via Pandolfini but Count Alvala?
Like most Americans, we were desirous of seeing the pope, and Count Alvala obtained for us the necessary permission. We were to be received on a Saturday at eleven. We went in the prescribed costume, black silk, with the picturesque Roman veil thrown over the head.
The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss St. Clair once more: he would never trouble me again. It was the only day on which we could see the Palace of the Cæsars, and would I be so good as to permit him to meet us there?
Pausing by the young count, who was kneeling beside me, he said impressively, "Courage and faith have always been attributes of the house of Alvala. Your fathers were good children of the Church, and you, my son, will not be wanting in any of the qualities of your race." When he had passed us we rose from our knees, and I could observe him more closely.
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