o the other, the
prince must have out his golden carriage." This was apparently an
allusion to one of the other items of the young man's grandeur.

"You always laugh at me," said the prince. "I know no more what to say!"

She looked at him with a sad smile and shook her head. "No, no, dear
prince, I don't laugh at you. Heaven forbid! You are much too serious an
affair. I assure you I feel your importance. What did you inform us was
the value of the hereditary diamonds of the Princess Casamassima?"

"Ah, you are laughing at me yet!" said the poor young man, standing
rigid and pale.

"It does n't matter," Christina went on. "We have a note of it; mamma
writes all those things down in a little book!"

"If you are laughed at, dear prince, at least it 's in company," said
Mrs. Light, caressingly; and she took his arm, as if to resist his
possible displacement under the shock of her daughter's sarcasm. But the
prince looked heavy-eyed toward Rowland and Roderick, to whom the
young girl was turning, as if he had much rather his lot were cast with
theirs.

"Is the villa inhabited?" Christina asked, pointing to the vast
melancholy structure which rises above the terrace.

"Not privately," said Roderick. "It is occupied by a Jesuits' college,
for little boys."

"Can women go in?"

"I am afraid not." And Roderick began to laugh. "Fancy the poor little
devils looking up from their Latin declensions and seeing Miss Light
standing there!"

"I should like to see the poor little devils, with their rosy cheeks and
their long black gowns, and when they were pretty, I should n't scruple
to kiss them. But if I can't have that amusement I must have some other.
We must not stand planted on this enchanting terrace as if we were
stakes driven into the earth. We must dance, we must feast, we must do
something picturesque. Mamma has arranged, I believe, that we are to go
back to Frascati to lunch at the inn. I decree that we lunch here and
send the Cavaliere to the inn to get the provisions! He can take the
carriage, which is waiting below."

Miss Light carried out this undertaking with unfaltering ardor. The
Cavaliere was summoned, and he stook to receive her commands hat in
hand, with his eyes cast down, as if she had been a princess addressing
her major-domo. She, however, laid her hand with friendly grace upon his
button-hole, and called him a dear, good old Cavaliere, for being always
so willing. Her spirits had risen with the