He read it through slowly, and when he had done, kept it open in his hand.  “I have youth, titles, wealth,” he thought to himself, sadly; “everything that is sought after in this world.  And yet if I try to think of any human being who really and truly loves me, I can remember but one—­the poor, faithful girl who wrote these lines!”

Old recollections of the first day when he met with Nanina, of the first sitting she had given him in Luca Lomi’s studio, of the first visit to the neat little room in the by-street, began to rise more and more vividly in his mind.  Entirely absorbed by them, he sat absently drawing with pen and ink, on some sheets of letter-paper lying under his hand, lines and circles, and fragments of decorations, and vague remembrances of old ideas for statues, until the sudden sinking of the flame of his lamp awoke his attention abruptly to present things.

He looked at his watch.  It was close on midnight.

This discovery at last aroused him to the necessity of immediate departure.  In a few minutes he had put on his domino and mask, and was on his way to the ball.

Before he reached the Melani Palace the first part of the entertainment had come to an end.  The “Toy Symphony” had been played, the grotesque dance performed, amid universal laughter; and now the guests were, for the most part, fortifying themselves in the Arcadian bowers for new dances, in which all persons present were expected to take part.  The Marquis Melani had, with characteristic oddity, divided his two classical refreshment-rooms into what he termed the Light and Heavy Departments.  Fruit, pastry, sweetmeats, salads, and harmless drinks were included under the first head, and all the stimulating liquors and solid eatables under the last.  The thirty shepherdesses had been, according to the marquis’s order, equally divided at the outset of the evening between the two rooms.  But as the company began to crowd more and more resolutely in the direction of the Heavy Department, ten of the shepherdesses attached to the Light Department were told off to assist in attending on the hungry and thirsty majority of guests who were not to be appeased by pastry and lemonade.  Among the five girls who were left behind in the room for the light refreshments was Nanina.  The steward soon discovered that the novelty of her situation made her really nervous, and he wisely concluded that if he trusted her where the crowd was greatest and the noise loudest, she would not only be utterly useless, but also very much in the way of her more confident and experienced companions.