e lives of fatherless sons, the event was considered as a family
matter and no great social celebration of it was contemplated. It
chanced, too, that the day of the week was the one appropriated by the
Montevarchi for their weekly dance, with which it would have been a
mistake to interfere. The old Prince Saracinesca, however, insisted that
a score of old friends should be asked to dinner, to drink the health of
his eldest grandson, and this was accordingly done.

Orsino always looked back to that banquet as one of the dullest at which
he ever assisted. The friends were literally old, and their conversation
was not brilliant. Each one on arriving addressed to him a few
congratulatory and moral sentiments, clothed in rounded periods and
twanging of Cicero in his most sermonising mood. Each drank his especial
health at the end of the dinner in a teaspoonful of old "vin santo," and
each made a stiff compliment to Corona on her youthful appearance. The
men were almost all grandees of Spain of the first class and wore their
ribbons by common consent, which lent the assembly an imposing
appearance; but several of them were of a somnolent disposition and
nodded after dinner, which did not contribute to prolong the effect
produced. Orsino thought their stories and anecdotes very long-winded
and pointless, and even the old prince himself seemed oppressed by the
solemnity of the affair, and rarely laughed. Corona, with serene good
humour did her best to make conversation, and a shade of animation
occasionally appeared at her end of the table; but Sant' Ilario was
bored to the verge of extinction and talked of nothing but archaeology
and the trial of the Cenci, wondering inwardly why he chose such
exceedingly dry subjects. As for Orsino, the two old princesses between
whom he was placed paid very little attention to him, and talked across
him about the merits of their respective confessors and directors. He
frivolously asked them whether they ever went to the theatre, to which
they replied very coldly that they went to their boxes when the piece
was not on the Index and when there was no ballet. Orsino understood why
he never saw them at the opera, and relapsed into silence. The butler, a
son of the legendary Pasquale of earlier days, did his best to cheer the
youngest of his masters with a great variety of wines; but Orsino would
not be comforted either by very dry champagne or very mellow claret. But
he vowed a bitter revenge and