e gave himself up to the strange
illusion of being happy. And had she ever seen a face so beaming as his
was when one day, in a splendid hall, a stately grey-haired man in a
long gown embraced him and laid a laurel wreath on the design for a
building, at which she had seen George work. And then he seemed to have
gone to another country, and to be living in the midst of the direst
poverty, yet somehow the world must have been turned upside down, for
he was as lighthearted and gay as if Dame Fortune had poured the entire
contents of her cornucopia over him.

He lived in a little white-washed room, which was not even floored, but
only paved with common tiles. In the evening he ate nothing save a piece
of bread, with some goat-cheese and figs, and quenched his thirst with
a draught of muddy wine which he diluted with water. A squalid old woman
brought him this wretched supper, and it cut the duchess to the heart to
see him hunt about for coppers enough to pay for it. One day he seemed
to have exhausted his store, for he turned his purse upside down and
shook it, but not the smallest coin fell out.

This grieved her sorely, and she wept bitterly, thinking of the ease of
her other son, and resenting the injustice with which blind and cruel
Fortune had bestowed her gifts.

When she had dried her eyes sufficiently to be able to see the picture
in the mirror once more, she beheld a long low house by the side of
which there was a large space roofed over with lattice work. This was
covered by a luxuriant growth of fig-branches and grape-vine. The moon
shed its silver radiance over the leaves and stems, while beneath it a
fire cast its golden and purple lights on the house, the trellis roof,
and the gay folk supping under it.

Young men in strange garb sat at the small tables. Their faces were
wonderfully animated and gay. Before each one stood a long-necked bottle
wound with straw, cups were filled, emptied, waved aloft or clinked.
With every moment the eyes of the drinkers grew brighter, their gestures
freer and more lively; finally one of them sprang up on a table, he was
the handsomest of them all,--her own George, and he looked as if he were
in Paradise instead of on this earth, and had been blessed by a sight of
God and his Heavenly host. He spoke and spoke, while the others listened
without moving until he raised a large goblet and took such a long
draught that the duchess was frightened. Then what a wild shout the
other