d a letter in his
hand. And the page questioned me with a grin and asked me if I were
Messer Lappo Lappi, and I, being so bewildered with the burden of my
warring thoughts, was half of a mind to answer that I was no such man,
but luckily recalled myself and walked the sober earth again soberly. I
assured him that I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a
silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the
missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along
the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter
then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave
me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses--Lord, as if
that ample baggage could ever be humble!--and would be flattered beyond
praise if my dignity would honor her with my presence on such a day at
such an hour. And I was very well pleased with this missive, and was
very careful to obey its commands.

The house where Monna Vittoria dwelt was a marvel of beauty, like its
mistress--a fair frame for a fair portrait. It seemed to have laid all
the kingdoms of earth under tribute, for, indeed, the lady's friends
were mainly men of wealth, cardinals and princes and great captains,
that were ever ready to give her the best they had to give for the
honor of her acquaintance. Her rooms were rich with statues of marble
and statues of bronze, and figures in ivory and figures in silver, and
with gold vessels, and cabinets of ebony and other costly woods; and
pictures by Byzantine painters hung upon her walls, and her rooms were
rich with all manner of costly stuffs and furs. He that was favored to
have audience with Monna Vittoria went to her as through a dream of
loveliness, marvelling at the many splendid things that surrounded her:
at the fountain in her court-yard, where the goldfish gambolled, and
where a Triton that came from an old Roman villa spouted; at her
corridors, lined with delicately tinted majolica that seemed cool and
clean as ice in those summer heats; at her antechambers, that glowed
with color and swooned with sweet odors; and, finally, at her own
apartments, where she that was lady of all this beauty seemed so much
more beautiful than it all.

Madonna Vittoria would have looked queenly in a cottage; in the midst of
her gorgeous surroundings she showed more than imperial, and she knew
the value of such trappings and made the most of them to dazzle her
a