her non-return.

"It is six o'clock, and Ginevra not yet home!" cried Bartolomeo.

"She was never so late before," said his wife.

The two old people looked at each other with an anxiety that was not
usual with them. Too anxious to remain in one place, Bartolomeo rose
and walked about the salon with an active step for a man who was over
seventy-seven years of age. Thanks to his robust constitution, he had
changed but little since the day of his arrival in Paris, and, despite
his tall figure, he walked erect. His hair, now white and sparse, left
uncovered a broad and protuberant skull, which gave a strong idea of his
character and firmness. His face, seamed with deep wrinkles, had taken,
with age, a nobler expression, preserving the pallid tones which inspire
veneration. The ardor of passions still lived in the fire of his eyes,
while the eyebrows, which were not wholly whitened, retained their
terrible mobility. The aspect of the head was stern, but it conveyed
the impression that Piombo had a right to be so. His kindness, his
gentleness were known only to his wife and daughter. In his functions,
or in presence of strangers, he never laid aside the majesty that time
had impressed upon his person; and the habit of frowning with his heavy
eyebrows, contracting the wrinkles of his face, and giving to his eyes a
Napoleonic fixity, made his manner of accosting others icy.

During the course of his political life he had been so generally feared
that he was thought unsocial, and it is not difficult to explain the
causes of that opinion. The life, morals, and fidelity of Piombo made
him obnoxious to most courtiers. In spite of the fact that delicate
missions were constantly intrusted to his discretion which to any other
man about the court would have proved lucrative, he possessed an income
of not more than thirty thousand francs from an investment in the Grand
Livre. If we recall the cheapness of government securities under the
Empire, and the liberality of Napoleon towards those of his faithful
servants who knew how to ask for it, we can readily see that the Baron
di Piombo must have been a man of stern integrity. He owed his plumage
as baron to the necessity Napoleon felt of giving him a title before
sending him on missions to foreign courts.

Bartolomeo had always professed a hatred to the traitors with whom
Napoleon surrounded himself, expecting to bind them to his cause by dint
of victories. It was he of whom it is to