the deuce had? "This leaves
me confused, but it improves the scenery a whole lot. But who, then, has
done this thing?"

"To solve that we must look nearer home."

"Have you any idea who did it?" he inquired anxiously.

"No."

"Have you another invitation?"

"I tore up the only one."

"That's too bad. A stationer's imprint might have helped us."

"I was angry and did not think. To-morrow a dozen temporary servants
will be added to the household. We shall be very busy."

"Before and after," said O'Mally dryly. He wondered what she on her part
had telegraphed the real princess. It was all very mystifying.

"Listen!" she said.

"Horses," declared O'Mally.

"Two," said Pietro, with a hand to his ear.

La Signorina's color deepened.

"Our friends," laughed O'Mally; "come up to see if we are still out of
jail."

The dreamy, pleasurable days at the Villa Ariadne were no more. The
spirit of suspicion, of unrest, of doubt now stalked abroad, peering
from veiled eyes, hovering on lips. And there was a coming and going of
menials, a to-and-froing of extra gardeners and carpenters, and the
sound of many hammers. The ball-room and the dining-room were opened and
aired, the beautiful floors polished, and the dust and cobwebs of twenty
years were vanquished.

In Florence there was a deal of excitement over the coming affair, for
the Villa Ariadne had once been the scene of many a splendid
entertainment. Men chatted about it in their cafes and the women
chattered about it in their boudoirs. And there was here and there a
mysterious smile, a knowing look, a shrug. There had always been a
mystery regarding the Principessa di Monte Bianca; many doubted her
actual existence. But the prince was known all over Europe as a handsome
spendthrift. And the fact that at this precise moment he was quartered
with the eighth corps in Florence added largely to the zest of
speculation. Oh, the nobility and the military, which are one and the
same thing, would be present at the ball; they were altogether too
inquisitive to decline.

Daily the inspector of seals made his solemn round, poking into the
forbidden chambers, into the lofts, into the cellars. He scrutinized
every chest and closet with all the provocative slowness of a
physiologist viewing under the microscope the corpuscles of some unhappy
frog. The information he had received from Rome had evidently quieted
his larger doubts; but these people, from the princess down to th