ne of the bridges, where a litter and a servant on
horseback holding a palfrey by the bridle were in attendance. The ladies
entered the litter, and she who had before spoken bade Adrian follow on
the palfrey.

"But tell me--" he began.

"No questions, Cavalier," said she, impatiently; "follow the living in
silence, or remain with the dead, as you list."

With that the litter proceeded, and Adrian mounted the palfrey
wonderingly, and followed his strange conductors, who moved on at a
tolerably brisk pace. They crossed the bridge, left the river on one
side, and, soon ascending a gentle acclivity, the trees and flowers
of the country began to succeed dull walls and empty streets. After
proceeding thus somewhat less than half an hour, they turned up a green
lane remote from the road, and came suddenly upon the porticoes of a
fair and stately palace. Here the ladies descended from their litter;
and Adrian, who had vainly sought to extract speech from the attendant,
also dismounted, and following them across a spacious court, filled on
either side with vases of flowers and orange-trees, and then through a
wide hall in the farther side of the quadrangle, found himself in one of
the loveliest spots eye ever saw or poet ever sung. It was a garden plot
of the most emerald verdure, bosquets of laurel and of myrtle opened on
either side into vistas half overhung with clematis and rose, through
whose arcades the prospect closed with statues and gushing fountains; in
front, the lawn was bounded by rows of vases on marble pedestals filled
with flowers, and broad and gradual flights of steps of the whitest
marble led from terrace to terrace, each adorned with statues and
fountains, half way down a high but softly sloping and verdant hill.
Beyond, spread in wide, various, and luxurious landscape, the vineyards
and olive-groves, the villas and villages, of the Vale of Arno,
intersected by the silver river, while the city, in all its calm, but
without its horror, raised its roofs and spires to the sun. Birds of
every hue and song, some free, some in net-work of golden wire, warbled
round; and upon the centre of the sward reclined four ladies unmasked
and richly dressed, the eldest of whom seemed scarcely more than twenty;
and five cavaliers, young and handsome, whose jewelled vests and golden
chains attested their degree. Wines and fruits were on a low table
beside; and musical instruments, chess-boards, and gammon-tables, lay
scatter