THE ROSE OF THE INFANTA.

SHE is a mere child; a duenna is taking care of her. She holds a rose in her hand and looks-at what? what is she looking at? She scarcely knows. The water, a fountain shaded by the pine and the birch, all this is before her, a swan with white wings, the rocking of the waves beneath the song of the boughs, and the radiant, blossoming, boundless garden. This beautiful angel seems formed of snow. See, a great palace standing as in a glory, a park, clear pools where the hinds come to drink, and starry peacocks beneath long-tressed woods are there. The whiteness of innocence makes her fairness more fair; her graces are like a sheaf of quivering rays. The very grass around this child has splendour, and seems full of fine rubies and diamonds; from the lips of dolphins a stream of sapphires flows.

She stands by the water's brim, busied with her flower; her basquine is of point lace from Genoa; on her petticoat an arabesque, straying 'mid the folds of the satin, follows the devious windings of a thread of Florentine gold. The unfolding, full spreading rose which rises from the fresh bud as from a green urn, sets off the exquisite smallness of her hand. When the child, with crimson lips reached out, wrinkles her laughing nostrils as she breathes in its perfume, the superb, regal, crimson flower half hides the charming face; so that the eye is perplexed between the flower and the beautiful playful child, and knows not which is rose-leaf and which cheek. The dark eyebrows make more lovely her blue eyes. She is all joy, enchantment, perfume. What sweet looks have the blue eyes! What a sweet name, Marie! All sunbeams; her eyes give light, her name