before whom the haughtiest noble is proud to lay his
homage.'

'Nay, nay,' broke she in gently, 'he will tell me all I ask in kindness,
not in fear.'

'Not in fear, I promise you,' said he proudly, and he drew himself up to
his highest.

'Was not that like him!' exclaimed the Duchess eagerly. 'It was his
own voice! And what good Italian you speak, boy,' said she, addressing
Gerald, with a pleasant smile. 'The Jesuit Fathers have given you the
best Roman accent. Tell me, what were their teachings--what have you
read?'

'Nothing regularly--nothing in actual study, madam; but, passingly, I
have read, in French, some memoirs, plays, sermons, poems, romances,
and suchlike; in English, very little; and in Italian, a few of the very
good?'

'Which do you call the very good?' 'I call Dante.'

'So do I.

'Sometimes I call Tasso, always Ariosto, so.'

She nodded an assent, and told him to continue.

'Then there is Metastasio.'

'What say you of him!' asked the Count.

'I like him: his rhymes flow gracefully, and the music of his verse
floats sweetly in one's ear; but then, there is not that sentiment,
that vigorous dash that stirs the heart, like a trumpet-call, such as we
find, for instance, in Alfieri.'

The Duchess smiled assuringly, and a faint, very faint tinge of red
coloured her pale cheek. 'It appears, then, he is your favourite of them
all?' said she gently. 'Can you remember any of his verses!'

'That can I. I knew him, at one time, off by heart, but somehow, in this
ignoble life of mine, I almost felt ashamed to recite his noble lines
to those who heard me. To think, for example, of the great poet of the
Oreste declaimed before a vile mob, impatient for some buffoonery, eager
for the moment when the jugglery would begin!'

'But you forget, boy, this is true fame! It is little to the great poet
that he is read and admired by those to whose natures he can appeal by
all the emotions which are common to each--lasting sympathies, whose
dwelling-places he knows; the great triumph is, to have softened the
hearts seared by dusty toil--to have smitten the rock whose water is
tears of joy and thankfulness. Is not Ariosto prouder as his verses
float along the dark canals of Venice, than when they are recited under
gilded ceilings!'

'You may be right,' said the boy thoughtfully, as he hung his head; 'am
I not, myself, a proof of what the bright images of poetry have cheered
and gladdened, out of depths of gl