een
strong, since his childhood, his constitution having been permanently
injured by a violent attack of malarious fever when he had been a mere
boy. A second fever, even more severe than the first, caught on a
shooting expedition near Fiumicino, had killed him, and Donna Francesca
was left a childless widow, in full possession of her own fortune and of
a little more in the shape of a small jointure. It was thought that she
would marry again before very long, but it was too soon to expect this
as yet.

Among her possessions as the last of her branch of the Braccio family,
of which the main line, however, was sufficiently well represented, was
the small but beautiful palace in which she now lived alone. It was
situated between the Capitoline Hill and the Tiber, surrounded on three
sides by dark and narrow streets, but facing a small square in which
there was an ancient church. When it is said that the palace was a small
one, its dimensions are compared with the great Roman palaces, more than
one of which could easily lodge a thousand persons. It was built on the
same general plan as most of them, with a ground floor having heavily
barred windows; a state apartment in the first story, with three stone
balconies on the front; a very low second story above that, but not
coextensive with it, because two of the great state rooms were higher
than the rest and had clere-story windows; and last of all, a third
story consisting of much higher rooms than the second, and having a
spacious attic under the sloping roof, which was, of course, covered
with red tiles in the old fashion. The palace, at that time known as the
Palazzo, or 'Palazzetto,' Borgia, was externally a very good specimen of
Renascence architecture of the period when the florid, 'barocco' style
had not yet got the upper hand in Rome. The great arched entrance for
carriages was well proportioned, the stone carvings were severe rather
than graceful, the cornices had great nobility both of proportion and
design. The lower story was built of rough-faced blocks of travertine
stone, above which the masonry was smooth. The whole palace was of that
warm, time-toned colour, which travertine takes with age, and which is,
therefore, peculiar to old Roman buildings.

Within, though it could not be said that any part had exactly fallen to
decay, there were many rooms which had been long disused, in which the
old frescoes and architectural designs in grey and white, and bits of