A DINNER AT BAIE.

HAVE had so little time to write in my journal, that I have allowed many pleasant occurrences to pass unnoticed. Florence Folham

and Philip have been riding on horseback with Luigi and me, for Philip says he is captivated with the exercise; I shrewdly suspect he is more captivated with Florence. He tries to be very bold about this sudden fancy for riding, desiring to deceive either himself or me, and I say not a word except to tease him a little about wishing to rid himself of some of his superfluous corpulency.

"How perfidious and cruel you women are," he cries; “I can call all the world to witness that you have for years, Ottilie, admired what you called my 'superb proportions.'"

"But when they cease to be proportions, and become dimensions, dear Philip, you cannot expect me to remain true to what no longer exists.”

I do not wonder, however, that he admires Florence. She is a charming creature, "si gentille et blonde comme les blès," as a French lady said very prettily of her the other evening; an alliterative comparison which loses half its point when translated into "fair as the wheat,” and yet it is strongly suggestive of just such beauty as

hers. She has golden hair hanging in loose, floating curls which let the light in over her soft red-and-white skin in the most delicious flecks; and blue eyes with the hue of the Viola pedata, the bright little flower found in early spring on the margins of wheat-fields,-eyes that are as cold as the hardy little Viola pedata itself, but which at times have a strange misty expression when she is deeply moved, either by Venitia's playing, or when singing one of her own operatic passages; this sweet mistiness seems as a sort of prevision of future "trouble, love, and poesy."

"Such mystic lore is in her eyes

And light of other worlds than ours,
She looked as she had fed on flowers,
And drunk the dews of Paradise."

Although "English from top to toe," so far as blood and birth go, foreign education has made her a complete Parisienne in manner and appearance. Her toilette is always comme il faut, and in the last mode of the month, for the family has an income which counts well on the continent; and her gowns, bonnets, and even light fancy jewelry, vary in the most systematic manner according to the orthodox law of the Parisian mode. She looks like a Follet fashion-plate done up into a charming little pastel study, as Philip aptly observed when he first saw her.

Her voice is in keeping with her appearance. She has been a pupil of Duprèz, and has one of those true Parisienne voices Scudo describes so graphically, as having

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more sharpness than sonorousness, more vibration than force"; a true salon voice, and exquisitely cultivated. The freshness of youth and her frank, warm English heart make of this sharpness, or elevation of sound, and vibra

tion an excellence rather than a defect; for the one is thrilling, and the other touching.

"She sings with a tear in her voice," Luigi says, and Philip last night compared her execution of the soliloquy in the last act of La Traviata to the misty light in an opal. Her voice is a little veiled, and the vibration in such heartrending passages sounds as the hidden spark in an opal looks. Venitia compares her singing or execution of cadenzas to small diamond points, and quotes also Scudo's delicious description,-"little pearls falling on scarlet velvet.”

But to my ears, her notes, while they are sparkling, are also round and liquid, not like diamond points or any hard gem, but as drops of dew, and they roll off in the air as we see glittering beads of water fall from the downy petals of a rich-hued flower. It is a pure soprano, very telling and bird-like in the upper division, and though trembling and delicate in the bridge-notes, there is a warm hue in them, which is not at all feverish, but gives just tenderness enough to create interest and almost love for the pretty singer herself, as well as admiration for the music.

Philip is completely infatuated with her, but he carries it off bravely, as if it were a mere fancy for a pretty girl, and compliments her openly, compliments which are so bewitching from a man like Philip, for they come colored with all the rich hues of his genius. Last evening she was singing the Prayer in "Assisa al piè d'un salice,” from Otello. Philip was leaning over the back of the lounge on which I was sitting, giving me the benefit of his short, enthusiastic ejaculations. I looked up in his keen, bright eye, as she ended the last cadenza on cenere a bagnar," where the voice mounted finely to the upper B, resting there an instant, and making a half-ending in a

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very effective "Ah," then came rippling down, full of little sobs, to the throat-notes, giving the "bagnar" on the key-note with a most touching expression of sorrow. whispered,

""'Tis a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out)

Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast.'"

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For one instant Philip looked at me as if he could have worshipped me, with that sublime generosity men show when you make them happy, and then electrified us all, and covered dear Florence's delicate brow with the happiest blushes by repeating to her, as a compliment, in his most impassioned and eloquent style, the whole beautiful description from Crashaw's "Music's Duel," in which is the passage I had quoted. His superb recitation of this lovely poem created the greatest enthusiasm in our little circle; as Janet said this morning,

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Surely there can be nothing in this world so gratifying to a man, as a society-triumph such as Philip experienced then. It was free from the vulgar intoxication of public applause, and filled to the brim with that keen sense of pleasure caused by the sudden sensation one feels when conscious of carrying along on the brilliant magnetic current of one's own genius and eloquence hearts and minds equal to one's own."

A day or two since we had a fine dinner at Baiæ. We started early in the morning, for it is now the latter part of May, and the weather, though delightful, is very warm, especially at midday. Mrs. Folham, Janet, and Venitia went in the coach, for we cannot persuade Venitia to ride; she says the management of the reins and exercise of the arms unfit her for musical execution, making her fingers tremble and her touch uncertain.

We had a glorious day of course; lived over old Roman times, quoted Homer, Virgil, Livy, Tacitus, and the Holy Book, for this whole promontory is filled full to overflowing with sacred and profane memories, which rush along in swift currents together, making a wildering whirlpool at times. We have to leap back and forth in history with a mental agility that tests our skill finely.

It was a regular excursion, and every celebrated spot in that direction was visited; for although we have driven and ridden so often around the environs of Naples, we have never yet stopped at any of the remarkable or classical spots. The first place we visited was Virgil's Tomb, which stands near the entrance of the Grotto of Posilippo.

"I am indebted to Ottilie for my first idea of this place," said Philip, when we reached the brow of the hill in which it is built; "it was given me by a drawing of hers, which hung in my father's dressing-room when I was a boy."

"Clear away in those happy years long ago," I thought, as I sat down on the top of the ivy-covered columbarium, and remembered the little drawing. I recalled all the feelings of girlish pride I had on receiving Mr. Edelhertz's praise, and the long, pleasant talk we had at the time I gave it to him; he described to me in his precise, elegant English, as he examined my drawing, the situation and sweet surroundings of this delightful place, which he had visited in his youth. The past swept over me like a flood; and it seemed as if I was living two existences at once.

Philip and Florence rambled over the hill-top, talking gayly, and enjoying the delicious landscape, which the early morning sun made as fresh and bright as is her