lation on the mother's side; with his Excellency dies the
male line."

"Is the heir present at our host's banquet?"

"No; they are not friends."

"No matter; he will be here to-morrow."

Mascari stared in surprise; but the signal for the banquet was given,
and the guests were marshalled to the board. As was the custom then, the
feast took place not long after mid-day. It was a long, oval hall, the
whole of one side opening by a marble colonnade upon a court or garden,
in which the eye rested gratefully upon cool fountains and statues of
whitest marble, half-sheltered by orange-trees. Every art that
luxury could invent to give freshness and coolness to the languid and
breezeless heat of the day without (a day on which the breath of the
sirocco was abroad) had been called into existence. Artificial currents
of air through invisible tubes, silken blinds waving to and fro, as if
to cheat the senses into the belief of an April wind, and miniature jets
d'eau in each corner of the apartment, gave to the Italians the same
sense of exhilaration and COMFORT (if I may use the word) which the
well-drawn curtains and the blazing hearth afford to the children of
colder climes.

The conversation was somewhat more lively and intellectual than is
common amongst the languid pleasure-hunters of the South; for the
prince, himself accomplished, sought his acquaintance not only amongst
the beaux esprits of his own country, but amongst the gay foreigners who
adorned and relieved the monotony of the Neapolitan circles. There were
present two or three of the brilliant Frenchmen of the old regime, who
had already emigrated from the advancing Revolution; and their peculiar
turn of thought and wit was well calculated for the meridian of a
society that made the dolce far niente at once its philosophy and its
faith. The prince, however, was more silent than usual; and when he
sought to rouse himself, his spirits were forced and exaggerated. To the
manners of his host, those of Zanoni afforded a striking contrast. The
bearing of this singular person was at all times characterised by a calm
and polished ease, which was attributed by the courtiers to the long
habit of society. He could scarcely be called gay; yet few persons more
tended to animate the general spirits of a convivial circle. He seemed,
by a kind of intuition, to elicit from each companion the qualities in
which he most excelled; and if occasionally a certain tone of latent
mockery