A THREATENING SKY.

"Come all ye faithful, come, and dare to prove The bitter sweet, the pain and bliss of love." TRENCH.

Francesca came down one of the shady garden paths to meet her lover; she held in her hand a forked branch, on which, nestled among the pale green leaves, grew four fresh-looking lemons. For a moment Carlo forgot everything in the bliss of seeing her again. It seemed to him that they had been ages apart; that he had been toiling across a barren desert to reach this cool green retreat, in which his betrothed reigned supreme. How beautiful she looked in that familiar, soft, white dress, and with her white forehead and delicate coloring shaded by a large hat! The hat was one of those shallow white ones which can sometimes be bought for two or three _soldi_; it was not calculated, however, to sustain the embraces of a lover, and it speedily fell back, leaving Francesca with her wavy brown hair uncovered. For a minute, Carlo held her from him, that he might the better see her, with a datura-tree for background, and the soft, creamy flowers drooping over her head. Francesca, having known him and loved him for years, saw in one glance that he was in trouble.

"You are tired, my own," she said. "It was too hot for you to ride back so early; you should have taken your _siesta_ at Naples."

"I couldn't rest," he said, with a sigh. "I wanted to get back to you."

"Something has grieved you. Does Uncle Guido disapprove of our betrothal?"

"No, oh no. How could he do that? He treated me as though I had been his son."

"Yet something or some one has been troubling you. But we will not talk of it now; you shall rest first. Come into the Rose-room; it will be cool there, and the sun is not off the summer-house yet."

They went together towards the house. The Rose-room was Francesca's own little sitting-room. It had a ceiling painted after the Italian fashion with wreaths of pink roses; it had cool gray walls crowded with a most miscellaneous collection of photographs and water-color sketches; it had rose-colored curtains in figured muslin; and, after the manner of rooms, it betrayed its owner's chief failing--it was in wild disorder. Francesca was by no means immaculate; like other girls, she had her faults, and untidiness was one of them.

"Try my rocking-chair," she said, removing a guitar which reposed upon the cushions, and trying to find a home for it upon the crowded table. "I will be back directly."

Carlo, rescuing the guitar, which was in imminent danger of falling, lay back in the easy-chair, and waited, letting his hands wander idly about among the strings. It was sweet to feel already so entirely at home at Casa Bella--its very confusion was dear to him. Presently Francesca returned, bearing a big tumbler of St. Galmier, which she set down upon Dante's _Paradiso_, while she selected the finest of the lemons from her branch.

"Lend me your knife, Carlino," she said; "I've lost mine, as usual. There!" as she cut open the cool, ripe fruit; "isn't that a beauty? How much, I wonder, for this glassful? I should think half. Ah, how like me! I've forgotten the sugar." Then, running to the door, "Sibyl! Sibyl!"

The little sister came flying down the passage.

"Run and fetch me some sugar, will you, Sibyl dear? Oh, bother! Now, what have I done with the store-room key? Look, darling, I think it must be on my dressing-table, or, perhaps, in the pocket of my blue gown; or, if not, in my work-basket."

Sibyl ran away to hunt for the missing key, and Francesca searched among the contents of the table to see if by chance it had been left there.

"Ah, Carlo mio!" she said, with a pretty penitence, "I fear I am not, as the ladies say who advertise in the newspapers, 'thoroughly domesticated.' I shall have to mend my evil ways now."

Carlo pretended not to understand what "domesticated" meant, and they had much merriment over a dictionary, which declared that it was to be "tame" and "not foreign."

Sibyl at last returned with the sugar-basin, claiming one lump as wages and accepting another to run away. Then Francesca began to stir the contents of the tumbler with an ivory paper-knife, since spoons were not handy; and in much laughter and lover-like teasing Carlo forgot all about the cloud-shadow which had arisen.

The ring fitted to perfection, and Francesca's delight was pretty to see; she was not above a womanly weakness for jewelry, and frankly owned that she always had longed for just one diamond.

"And what about the old Maestro?" she exclaimed at last. "You never told me how he bore the news."

"Well, dear old Piale was, or pretended to be, a good deal depressed. It seems that he really had set his heart on my going on the stage, and had not at all realized how impossible that would be."

"Yet you do not feel as my father does about theatre-going?" said Francesca. "And Clare! Don't you remember what arguments we used to have with dear Clare about it?"

"Yes, she was dead against it; but then she was brought up in a Puritan family, and the old prejudices lingered with her. For me, I have no feeling whatever of that sort, but nevertheless the life of an operatic singer is quite the last I should willingly choose. Piale talks scoffingly of the humdrum life of an advocate; but for my