graceless husband of yours? He is always abusing me--as though I
were his property, or his guest. Orsino, my boy, go away--we are all
quarrelling here like a pack of wolves, and you ought to respect your
elders. Here is your father calling me by bad names--"

"I said you were too good," observed Giovanni.

"Yes--good and confiding! If you can find anything worse to say, say
it--and may you live to hear that good-for-nothing Orsino call you good
and confiding when you are eighty-two years old. And Corona is laughing
at me. It is insufferable. You used to be a good girl, Corona--but you
are so proud of having four sons that there is no possibility of talking
to you any longer. It is a pity that you have not brought them up
better. Look at Orsino. He is laughing too."

"Certainly not at you, grandfather," the young man hastened to say.

"Then you must be laughing at your father or your mother, or both, since
there is no one else here to laugh at. You are concocting sharp speeches
for your abominable tongue. I know it. I can see it in your eyes. That
is the way you have brought up your children, Giovanni. I congratulate
you. Upon my word, I congratulate you with all my heart! Not that I ever
expected anything better. You addled your own brains with curious
foreign ideas on your travels--the greater fool I for letting you run
about the world when you were young. I ought to have locked you up in
Saracinesca, on bread and water, until you understood the world well
enough to profit by it. I wish I had."

None of the three could help laughing at this extraordinary speech.
Orsino recovered his gravity first, by the help of the historical
tapestry. The old gentleman noticed the fact.

"Come here, Orsino, my boy," he said. "I want to talk to you."

Orsino came forward. The old prince laid a hand on his shoulder and
looked up into his face.

"You are twenty-one years old to-day," he said, "and we are all
quarrelling in honour of the event. You ought to be flattered that we
should take so much trouble to make the evening pass pleasantly for you,
but you probably have not the discrimination to see what your amusement
costs us."

His grey beard shook a little, his rugged features twitched, and then a
broad good-humoured smile lit up the old face.

"We are quarrelsome people," he continued in his most Cheerful and
hearty tone. "When Giovanni and I were young--we were young together,
you know--we quarrelled every day as regula