Page 353 (1/2)

Then, returning to the altar, they threw into the urn the suests has proposed theain

resounded, and with a solelance still

directed upward, Corilla drew one of the little strips of paper from the

urn Accident, or perhaps her own dexterity, had favored her

"Sappho's la herself from the rocks"--that was the

theme proposed

Corilla's face immediately took an expression of sadness; her eyes

flashed with an unnatural fire; her previously raised arm fell powerless

by her side; her head, like a broken rose, sank upon her breast; her

other hand convulsively grasped the urn, and in this position she in

fact rese over the ashes of her lost

happiness She was now the repudiated and forsaken one who, ready to

resign her life, was brooding upon thoughts of death And while her face

took this expression, and she, staring upon the earth before her, seeht Corilla: "This is a

charood Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn

forto his

proreeable iive him a kiss for his complaisance Besides, the Tasso

rhyain she directed her gaze, with a gloomy expression, toward the

heavens, and with a violently heaving bosoan the laentle breathings of the flute, rolled this sweet and