Yes,
it will inspire in me a very effective improvisation, and I will at the
same time make a selection from my dear poets of some striking rhymes
upon death and the grave. And when I have the rhymes, the thoughts and
words will come of themselves. Rhymes, rhymes, these are the main things
with poets!"
And while the improvisatrice was thus speaking to herself, she had
mechanically adorned her person with the brilliants, attaching the
beautiful collar to her neck, the long pendants to her ears, and placing
the splendid diadem upon her brow.
She looked exceedingly beautiful in these ornaments, and consequently
rejoiced that her friend Cardinal Francesco Albani came at this precise
moment.
"He will be ravished?" said she, with a smile, advancing to meet him
with the proud and imposing dignity of a queen.
"You are beautiful as a goddess!" exclaimed the cardinal, "and whoever
sees you thus has seen the protecting divinity of ancient Rome, the
sublime Juno, queen of heaven!"
"Were I Juno, would you consent to be my Vulcan?" roguishly asked
Corilla.
"No," said Albani, laughing; "the noble Juno was not exactly true to her
Vulcan, and I require a faithful love! Would you be that, Corilla?"
"We shall see," said she, changing the arrangement of the diadem
before the glass--"we shall see, my worthy friend.
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