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 it with the oil of hope, or whether it will conume the marrow of my bones. Towards every virgin that celebrates the feat of Flora in the prightly choral dance, my heart is inenible and cold. The divine maid, to whom I have devoted my enraptured heart, does not move in that circle of chearful dancers: yet I have dicovered her in your palace; but perhaps he is only a creature of the glowing imagination of the painter. Yet cannot believe that the artit could have invented uch a portrait: no, the mater hand of nature mut needs have traced the original traits of o glorious a copy.’

The princes was impatient to learn what picture had made o trange an impreion on the young adventurer. ‘Follow me,’ aid he, ‘this intant into the palace: let me know whether the caprice of Cupid is making port with your heart, by offering you a cloud intead of a Goddes, for his malice is unbounded; or whether, contrary to his cutom,