surrounded by a colonnade.

It is very dark. The palace rises upward four lofty stories. Above is
a square patch of sky, on which a star trembles. The court is full
of damp, unwholesome odors. The foot slips upon the slimy pavement.
Nobili stopped. The old man came limping after, buttoning his coat
together.

"Ah! poor me!--The excellency is young!" He spoke in the odd, muffled
voice, peculiar to the deaf. "The excellency goes so fast he will fall
if he does not mind. Our court-yard is very damp; the stairs are old."

"Which is the way up-stairs?" Nobili asked, impatiently. "It is so
dark I have forgotten the turn."

"Here, excellency--here to the right. By the Madonna there, in the
niche, with the light before it. A thousand excuses! The excellency
will excuse me, but I have not yet lit the lamp on the stairs. I
was resting. There are so many visitors to the Signora Marchesa. The
excellency will not tell the Signora Marchesa that it was dark upon
the stairs? Per pieta!"

The shriveled old man placed himself full in Nobili's path, and held
out his hands like claws entreatingly.

"A thousand devils!--no," was Nobili's irate reply, pushing him back.
"Let me go up; I shall say nothing. Cospetto! What is it to me?"

"Thanks! thanks! The excellency is full of mercy to an old, overworked
servant. There was a time when the Boccarini--"

Nobili did not wait to hear more, but strode through the darkness at
hazard, to find the stairs.

"Stop! stop! the excellency will break his limbs against the wall!"
the old man shouted.

He fumbled in his pocket, and drew out some matches. He struck one
against the wall, held it above his head, and pointed with his bony
finger to a broad stone stair under an inner arch.

Nobili ascended rapidly; he was in no mood for delay. The old man,
standing at the foot, struck match after match to light him.

"Above, excellency, you will find our usual lamps. You must go on to
the second story."

On the landing at the first floor there was still a little daylight
from a window as big as if set in the tribune of a cathedral. Here a
lamp was placed on an old painted table. Some moth-eaten tapestry hung
from a mildewed wall. Here and there a rusty nail had given way, and
the stuff fell in downward folds. Nobili paused. His head was hot and
dizzy. He had dined well, and he had drunk freely. His eyes traveled
upward to the old tapestry--(it was the daughter of Herodias dancing
before Herod the