mes, these are the main things
with poets!"

And while the improvisatrice was thus speaking to herself, she had
mechanically adorned her person with the brilliants, attaching the
beautiful collar to her neck, the long pendants to her ears, and placing
the splendid diadem upon her brow.

She looked exceedingly beautiful in these ornaments, and consequently
rejoiced that her friend Cardinal Francesco Albani came at this precise
moment.

"He will be ravished?" said she, with a smile, advancing to meet him
with the proud and imposing dignity of a queen.

"You are beautiful as a goddess!" exclaimed the cardinal, "and whoever
sees you thus has seen the protecting divinity of ancient Rome, the
sublime Juno, queen of heaven!"

"Were I Juno, would you consent to be my Vulcan?" roguishly asked
Corilla.

"No," said Albani, laughing; "the noble Juno was not exactly true to her
Vulcan, and I require a faithful love! Would you be that, Corilla?"

"We shall see," said she, changing the arrangement of the diadem
before the glass--"we shall see, my worthy friend. But forget not the
conditions--first the laurel-crown!"

"You shall have it!" triumphantly responded the cardinal.

"Are you certain of that?" asked Corilla, with flashing eyes and glowing
cheeks.

Cardinal Francesco Albani smiled mysteriously.

"Pope Ganganelli is ill," said he, "and it is thought he will die!"

THE DOOMING LETTER

Groaning, supported by his faithful Lorenzo's arm, Pope Ganganelli
slowly moved through the walks of his garden. Some months had passed
since the suppression of the order of the Jesuits--how had these few
months changed poor Clement! Where was the peace and cheerfulness of
his face, where was the sublime expression of his features, the firm and
noble carriage of his body--where was it all?

Trembling, shattered, with distorted features, and with dull,
half-closed eyes, crawled he about with groans, his brow wrinkled, his
lips compressed by pain and inward sorrow.

No one dared to remain with him; he spoke to no one. But Lorenzo was yet
sometimes able to drive away the clouds from his brow, and to recall a
faint smile to his thin pale lips.

He had also to-day succeeded in this, and for the first time in several
weeks had Ganganelli, yielding to his prayers, consented to a walk in
the garden of the Quirinal.

"This air refreshes me," said the pope, breathing more freely; "it seems
as if it communicated to my lungs a renew