The even verses are usually in assonance, although the verses may have the rhyme-scheme a b a b. The Lira is a strophe of five verses, of which the first, third, and fourth are heptasyllables, and the second and fifth are hendecasyllables.

Hedwig von Lira, the contessina, as we always call her, is just Nino's age, but she seemed much younger, as the children of the North always do.

Graf von Lira, as I have already told you, is a foreigner of rank, who had been a Prussian colonel, and was wounded in the war of 1866.