atory." The mysterious Chevalier
Graham rang a silver bell, which summoned a little page dressed in
scarlet, with whom he exchanged a few rapid words in German. The
communication appeared to agitate the Chevalier; and after dismissing
the page, he turned to the doctor. "Signor Dottore," he said, "the most
important part of your occasion is past. The lady whom you have been
unhappily called to attend, met with an alarming accident in her
carriage, not half an hour before I found you in the church, and the
unlucky absence of her physician leaves her entirely under your charge.
Her accouchement is over, apparently without any result more than
exhaustion; but of that you will be the judge."

It was only at the mention of the carriage and the accident that Dr.
Beaton, whose wits appear to have been wool-gathering, suddenly guessed
at a possible connection between these "most illustrious and unfortunate
of Scottish Jacobites," to whose house he had been thus mysteriously
introduced, and the lady and gentleman in whom he had that same afternoon
recognised Charles Edward and his wife. The page reappeared, and
conducted Dr. Beaton through another suite of splendid apartments, till
they came to an ante-room decorated with the portraits of no less
remarkable persons than the rebel Duke of Perth and King James VIII., a
fact which shows that the Stuarts must have carried their furniture with
them, from Rome to a Lucchese villa hired for a few months, with more
recklessness than one might have imagined likely in those days of
post-chaises. Out of this ante-room the physician was ushered into a
large and magnificent bed-room, lit with a single taper. From the side
of a crimson-draped bed stepped a lady, who saluted Dr. Beaton in
English, and led him up to the patient, while a female attendant nursed
an infant enveloped in a mantle. The lady drew aside the curtain, and by
the faint light the doctor was able to distinguish a pale, delicate
face, and a slender white arm and hand lying upon the blue velvet
counterpane. The lady in waiting said some words in German, in answer
to which the sick woman feebly attempted to stretch out her hand to
the physician. Having ascertained that the patient was in a dangerous
condition, Dr. Beaton asked for pen and paper to write out a prescription,
which, in that Apennine wilderness, would doubtless be made up with the
greatest exactness and rapidity. By the side of the writing-desk was a
dressing-table