amuse some of the ladies of the court, one of them,
the Countess of Berg, came forward from a corner where she had been busy
with pencil and paper and said, "It is our turn now. Here, Mr. Warner,
is an acrostic which I ask you to solve for me." And with a smile which
held a spice of malice she handed him the paper. Upon it there were ten
rhymed couplets. Wogan solved the first four, and found that the initial
letters of the words were C, L, E, M. The answer to the acrostic was
"Clementina." Wogan gave the paper back.

"I can make neither head nor tail of it," said he. "The attempt is
beyond my powers."

"Ah," said she, drily, "you own as much? I would never have believed you
would have owned it."

"But what is the answer?" asked a voice at which Wogan started.

"The answer," replied the Countess, "is Mary, Queen of Scots, who was
most unjustly imprisoned in Fotheringay," and she tore the paper into
tiny pieces.

Wogan turned towards the voice which had so startled him and saw the
gossamer lady whom he had befriended on the road from Florence. At once
he rose and bowed to her.

"I should have presented you before to my friend, Lady Featherstone,"
said the Countess, "but it seems you are already acquainted."

"Indeed, Mr. Warner did me a great service at a pinch," said Lady
Featherstone. "He was my postillion, though I never paid him, as I do
now in thanks."

"Your postillion!" cried one or two of the ladies, and they gathered
about the great stove as Lady Featherstone told the story of Wogan's
charioting.

"I bade him hurry," said she, "and he outsped my bidding. Never was
there a postillion so considerately inconsiderate. I was tossed like a
tennis ball, I was one black bruise, I bounced from cushion to cushion;
and then he drew up with a jerk, sprang off his horse, vanished into a
house and left me, panting and dishevelled, a twist of torn ribbons and
lace, alone in my carriage in the streets of Bologna."

"Bologna. Ah!" said the Countess, with a smile of significance at Wogan.

Wogan was looking at Lady Featherstone. His curiosity, thrust into the
back of his mind by the more important matter of his mission now
revived. What had been this lady's business who travelled alone to
Bologna and in such desperate haste?

"Your Ladyship, I remember," he said, "gave me to understand that you
were sorely put to it to reach Bologna."

Her Ladyship turned her blue eyes frankly upon Wogan. Then she lowered
them.