ed eyes, which lent her face a languid air. Her brow was
low and broad, and her lips of a most startling red against the pallor
of the rest.

She rose instantly upon my entrance, and came towards me with a slow
smile, holding out her hand, and murmuring words of most courteous
welcome.

"This, Ser Agostino," said Fifanti, "is my wife."

Had he announced her to be his daughter it would have been more credible
on the score of their respective years, though equally incredible on the
score of their respective personalities.

I gaped foolishly in my amazement, a little dazzled, too, by the
effulgence of her eyes, which were now raised to the level of my own. I
lowered my glance abashed, and answered her as courteously as I could.
Then she led me to the table, and presented me to the company, naming
each to me.

The first was a slim and very dainty young gentleman in a scarlet
walking-suit, over which he wore a long scarlet mantle. A gold cross was
suspended from his neck by a massive chain of gold. He was delicately
featured, with a little pointed beard, tiny mustachios, and long, fair
hair that fell in waves about his effeminate face. He had the whitest
of hands, very delicately veined in blue, and it was--as I soon
observed--his habit to carry them raised, so that the blood might not
flow into them to coarsen their beauty. Attached to his left wrist by a
fine chain was a gold pomander-ball of the size of a small apple, very
beautifully chiselled. Upon one of his fingers he wore the enormous
sapphire ring of his rank.

That he was a prince of the Church I saw for myself; but I was far from
being prepared for the revelation of his true eminence--never dreaming
that a man of the humble position of Doctor Fifanti would entertain a
guest so exalted.

He was no less a person than the Lord Egidio Oberto Gambara, Cardinal of
Brescia, Governor of Piacenza and Papal Legate to Cisalpine Gaul.

The revelation of the identity of this elegant, effeminate, perfumed
personage was a shock to me; for it was not thus by much that I had
pictured the representative of our Holy Father the Pope.

He smiled upon me amiably and something wearily, the satiate smile of
the man of the world, and he languidly held out to me the hand bearing
his ring. I knelt to kiss it, overawed by his ecclesiastical rank,
however little awed by the man within it.

As I rose again he looked up at me considering my inches.

"Why," said he, "here is a fine