vanity, she was susceptible to their lack of deference. She had done no harm, but she knew that every one thought her an irresponsible woman, and the thrifty Romans feared her extravagance, though some of them perhaps courted her fortune: many had admired her, and had to some extent expressed their devotion, but no scion of all the great families had asked her to be his wife. The nearest approach to a proposal had been the doubtful attention she had received from Giovanni Sarracinesca during the time when his headstrong father had almost persuaded him to marry her, and she thought of her disappointed hopes with much bitterness. To destroy Giovanni by the revelations she now proposed to make, to marry Del Ferice, and then to develop her position by means of the large fortune she had inherited from her first husband, seemed on the whole a wise plan. Del Ferice's title was not much, to be sure, but, on the other hand, he was intimate with every one she knew, and for a few thousand scudi she could buy some small estate with a good title attached to it. She would then change her mode of life, and assume the pose of a social power, which as a young widow she could not do. It was not so bad, after all, especially if she could celebrate the first day of her engagement by destroying the reputation of Giovanni Sarracinesca, root and branch, and dealing a blow at Corona's happiness from which it would not recover.

As for Del Ferice, he regarded his triumph as complete. He cared little what became of Giovanni-whether he was able to refute the evidence brought against him or not. There had been nothing in the matter which was dishonest, and properly made out marriage-certificates are not easy

things to annul. Giovanni might swim or sink-it was nothing to Ugo del Ferice, now that he had gained the great object of his life, and was at liberty to publish his engagement to Donna Tullia Mayer. He lost no time in telling his friends the good news, and before the evening was over a hundred people had congratulated him. Donna Tullia, too, appeared in more than usually gay attire, and smilingly received the expressions of good wishes which were showered upon her. She was not inclined to question the sincerity of those who spoke, for in her present mood the stimulus of a little popular noise was soothing to her nerves, which had been badly strained by the excitement of the day. When she closed her eyes she had evil visions of Temistocle retreating at full speed down the stairs with his unearned bride, or of Del Ferice's calm, pale face, as he had sat in her house that afternoon grasping the precious documents in his hand until she paid the price he asked, which was herself. But she smiled at each new congratulation readily enough, and said in her heart that she would yet become a great power in society, and make her house the centre of all attractions. And meanwhile she pondered on the title she should buy for her husband: she came of high blood herself, and she knew how such dignities as a "principe" or a "duca" were regarded when bought. There was nothing for it but to find some snug little marquisate-"marchese" sounded very well, though one could not be called "eccellenza" by one's servants; still, as the daughter of a prince, she might manage even that. "Marchese"- yes, that would do. What a pity there were only four "canopy" marquises

"marchesi del baldacchino"-in

He had wonderfully clear instincts. "And now," he continued, "we have settled that matter; when shall the happy day be?"

"Oh, there is time enough to think of that," answered Donna Tullia, with a blush that might have passed for the result of a coy shyness, but which was in reality caused by a certain annoyance at being pressed.

"No," objected Del Ferice, "we must announce our engagement at once. There is no reason for delay to-day is better than to

morrow.

"To-day?" repeated Donna Tullia, in some alarm.

"Why not? Why not, my dear lady, since you and I are both in earnest ?"

"I think it would be much better to let this affair pass first."

"On the contrary," he argued, "from the moment we are publicly engaged I become your natural protector. If any one offers you any insult in this matter, I shall then have an acknowledged right to avenge you-a right I dearly covet. Do you think I would dread to meet Don Giovanni again? He wounded me, it is true, but he has the marks of my sword upon his body also. Give me at once the privilege of appearing as your champion, and you will not regret it. But if you delay doing so, all sorts of circumstances may arise, all sorts of unpleasantness-who could protect you? Of course, even in that case I would; but you know the tongues of the gossips in Rome it would do you harm instead of good."

too soon. It gives us liberty, and it gives the world satisfaction; it protects you, and it will be an inestimable pleasure to me. Why delay the inevitable? Let us appear at once as engaged to be married, and you put a sword in my hand to defend you and to enforce your position in this unfortunate affair with the Astrardente."

"Well, you may announce it if you please," she answered, reluctantly.

"Thank you, my dear lady," said Del Ferice. "And here are the papers. Make the best use of them you can-any use that you make of them will be good, I know. How could it be otherwise?"

But

Donna Tullia's fingers closed upon the large envelope with a grasping grip, as though she would never relinquish that for which she had paid so dear a price. She had, indeed, at one time almost despaired of getting possession of them, and she had passed a terrible hour, besides abasing herself to the fruitless bribery she had practised upon Temistocle. she had gained her end, even at the expense of permitting DelFerice to publish her engagement to marry him. She felt she could break it off if she decided at last that the union was too distasteful to her; but she foresaw that, from the point of worldly ambition, she would be no great loser by marrying a man of such cunning wit, who possessed such weapons against his enemies, and who, on the whole, as she believed, entirely sympathised with her view of life. She recognised that her chances of making a great match were diminishing rapidly; she could not tell precisely why, but she felt, to her mortification, that she had not made a good use of her rich widowhood people did not respect her much, and as this touched her

vanity, she was susceptible to their lack of deference. She had done no harm, but she knew that every one thought her an irresponsible woman, and the thrifty Romans feared her extravagance, though some of them perhaps courted her fortune: many had admired her, and had to some extent expressed their devotion, but no scion of all the great families had asked her to be his wife. The nearest approach to a proposal had been the doubtful attention she had received from Giovanni Sarracinesca during the time when his headstrong father had almost persuaded him to marry her, and she thought of her disappointed hopes with much bitterness. To destroy Giovanni by the revelations she now proposed to make, to marry Del Ferice, and then to develop her position by means of the large fortune she had inherited from her first husband, seemed on the whole a wise plan. Del Ferice's title was not much, to be sure, but, on the other hand, he was intimate with every one she knew, and for a few thousand scudi she could buy some small estate with a good title attached to it. She would then change her mode of life, and assume the pose of a social power, which as a young widow she could not do. It was not so bad, after all, especially if she could celebrate the first day of her engagement by destroying the reputation of Giovanni Sarracinesca, root and branch, and dealing a blow at Corona's happiness from which it would not recover.

things to annul. Giovanni might swim or sink--it was nothing to Ugo del Ferice, now that he had gained the great object of his life, and was at liberty to publish his engagement to Donna Tullia Mayer. He lost no time in telling his friends the good news, and before the evening was over a hundred people had congratulated him. Donna Tullia, too, appeared in more than usually gay attire, and smilingly received the expressions of good wishes which were showered upon her. She was not inclined to question the sincerity of those who spoke, for in her present mood the stimulus of a little popular noise was soothing to her nerves, which had been badly strained by the excitement of the day. When she closed her eyes she had evil visions of Temistocle retreating at full speed down the stairs with his unearned bride, or of Del Ferice's calm, pale face, as he had sat in her house that afternoon grasping the precious documents in his hand until she paid the price he asked, which was herself. But she smiled at each new congratulation readily enough, and said in her heart that she would yet become a great power in society, and make her house the centre of all attractions. And meanwhile she pondered on the title she should buy for her husband: she came of high blood herself, and she knew how such dignities as a "principe" or a "duca" were regarded when bought. There was nothing for it but to find some snug little marquisate-"marchese" sounded very well, though one could not

servants; still, as the daughter of a prince, she might manage even that.

"Marchese" — yes, that would do. What a pity there were only four" canopy "marquises -"marchesi del baldacchino”—in

Rome who rank as princes! That was exactly the combination of dignities Donna Tullia required for her husband. But once a "marchese," if she was very charitable, and did something in the way of a public work, the Holy Father might condescend to make

Del Ferice a "ducca" in the ordinary course as a step in the nobility. Donna Tullia dreamed many things that night, and she afterwards accomplished most of them, to the surprise of everybody, and, if the truth were told, to her own considerable astonishment.

Giovanni, you are the victim of some outrageous plot," said old Sarracinesca, entering his son's room on the following morning. "I have thought it all out in the night, and I am convinced of it.”

Giovanni was extended upon a sofa, with a book in his hand and a cigar between his lips. He looked up quietly from his reading.

"I am not the victim yet, nor ever will be," he answered; "but it is evident that there is something at the bottom of this besides Madame Mayer's imagination. I will find out."

"What pleases me especially," remarked the old Prince, "is the wonderful originality of the idea. It would have been commonplace to make out that you had poisoned half-a-dozen wives, and buried their bodies in the vaults of Sarracinesca; it would have been banal to say that you were not yourself, but some one else; or to make out that you were a revolutionary agent in disguise, and that the real Giovanni had been murdered by you, who had taken his place without my discovering it,-very commonplace all that. But to say you actually have a living wife, and to try to prove it by documents, is an idea worthy of a great mind. It takes one's breath away."

Giovanni laughed.

“It will end in our having to go to Aquila in search of my supposed better half," he said. "Aquila, of

all places! If she had said Paris— or even Florence-but why, in the name of geography, Aquila ?”

"She probably looked for some out-of-the-way place upon an alphabetical list," laughed the Prince. "Aquila stood first. We shall know in two hours-come along. It is time to be going."

They found Corona in her boudoir. She had passed an uneasy hour on the previous afternoon after they had left her, but her equanimity was now entirely restored. She had made up her mind that, however ingenious the concocted evidence might turn out to be, it was absolutely impossible to harm Giovanni by means of it. His position was beyond attack, as, in her mind, his character was above slander. Far from experiencing any sensation of anxiety as to the result of Donna Tullia's visit, it was curiosity which she most felt to see what these fancied proofs would be like. She still believed that Madame Mayer was mad.

"I have been remarking to Giovanni upon Donna Tullia's originality," said old Sarracinesca. "It is charming; it shows a talent for fiction which the world has been long in realising, which we have not even suspected-an amazing and transcendent genius for invention."

"It is pure insanity," answered Corona, in a tone of conviction. "The woman is mad."

"Mad as an Englishman," asseverated the Prince, using the most powerful simile in the Italian language. "We will have her in San Spirito before night, and she will puzzle the doctors."

"She is not mad," said Giovanni, quietly. "I do not even believe we shall find that her documents are forgeries."

Co

"What?" cried his father. rona looked quietly at Giovanni. "You yourself," said the latter, turning to old Sarracinesca, "were assuring me half an hour ago that I was the victim of a plot. Now, if anything of the kind is seriously attempted, you may be sure it will be well done. She has a good ally in the man to whom she is engaged. Del Ferice is no fool, and he hates me."

"Del Ferice!" exclaimed Corona, in surprise. As she went nowhere as yet, she had, of course, not heard the news which had been published on the previous evening. "You do not mean to say she is going to marry Del Ferice?"

"Yes, indeed," said Giovanni. "They both appeared last night and announced the fact, and received everybody's congratulations. It is a most appropriate match."

"I agree with you-a beautiful triangular alliteration of wit, wealth, and wickedness," observed the Prince. "He has brains, she has money, and they are both as bad as possible."

"I thought you used to like Donna Tullia," said Corona, suppressing a smile.

"I did," said old Sarracinesca, stoutly. "I wanted Giovanni to marry her. It has pleased Providence to avert that awful catastrophe. I liked Madame Mayer because she was rich and noisy and good-looking, and I thought that, as Giovanni's wife, she would make the house gay. We are such

a pair of solemn bears together, that it seemed appropriate that somebody should make us dance. It was a foolish idea, I confess, though I thought it very beautiful at the time. It merely shows how liable we are to mistakes. Imagine Giovanni married to a lunatic!"

"I repeat that she is not mad," said Giovanni: "I cannot tell how they have managed it, but I am sure it has been managed well, and will give us trouble. You will see."

"I do not understand at all how there can be any trouble about it," said Corona, proudly. "It is perfectly simple for us to tell the truth, and to show what they say is a lie. You can prove easily enough that you were in Canada at the time. I wish it were time for her to come. Let us go to breakfast in the meanwhile."

The views taken by the three were characteristic of their various natures. The old Prince, who was violent of temper, and inclined always to despise an enemy in any shape, scoffed at the idea that there was anything to show; and though his natural wit suggested from time to time that there was a plot against his son, his general opinion was, that it was a case of singular madness. He hardly believed Donna Tullia would appear at all; and if she did, he expected some extraordinary outburst, some pitiable exhibition of insanity. Corona, on the other hand, maintained a proud indifference, scorning to suppose that anything could possibly injure Giovanni in any way, loving him too entirely to admit that he was vulnerable at all, still less that he could possibly have done anything to give colour to the accusation brought against him. Giovanni alone of all the three foresaw that there would be