ere was nothing of the too-prevalent epicene in the
Duchessa's aspect; she was very certainly a woman. "Heavens, how she
walks!" he cried in a deep whisper.

But then a sudden wave of dejection swept over him. At first he could
not account for it. By and by, however, a malicious little voice began
to repeat and repeat within him, "Oh, the futile impression you must
have made upon her! Oh, the ineptitudes you uttered! Oh, the precious
opportunity you have misemployed!"

"You are a witch," he said to Marietta. "You've proved it to the hilt. I
've seen the person, and the object is more desperately lost than ever."

X

That evening, among the letters Peter received from England, there was
one from his friend Mrs. Winchfield, which contained certain statistics.

"Your Duchessa di Santangiolo 'was' indeed, as your funny old servant
told you, English: the only child and heiress of the last Lord Belfont.
The Belfonts of Lancashire (now, save for your Duchessa, extinct) were
the most bigoted sort of Roman Catholics, and always educated their
daughters in foreign convents, and as often as not married them to
foreigners. The Belfont men, besides, were ever and anon marrying
foreign wives; so there will be a goodish deal of un-English blood in
your Duchessa's own ci-devant English veins.

"She was born, as I learn from an indiscretion of my Peerage, in 1870,
and is, therefore, as near to thirty (the dangerous age!) as to the
six-and-twenty your droll old Marietta gives her. Her Christian names
are Beatrice Antonia Teresa Mary--faites en votre choix. She was
married at nineteen to Baldassarre Agosto, Principe Udeschini, Duca di
Santangiolo, Marchese di Castellofranco, Count of the Holy Roman Empire,
Knight of the Holy Ghost and of St. Gregory, (does it take your breath
away?), who, according to Frontin, died in '93; and as there were no
children, his brother Felipe Lorenzo succeeded to the titles. A younger
brother still is Bishop of Sardagna. Cardinal Udeschini is the uncle.

"That, dear child, empties my sack of information. But perhaps I have
a bigger sack, full of good advice, which I have not yet opened. And
perhaps, on the whole, I will not open it at all. Only, remember that
in yonder sentimental Italian lake country, in this summer weather, a
solitary young man's fancy might be much inclined to turn to thoughts
of--folly; and keep an eye on my friend Peter Marchdale."

Our solitary young man brooded over M