er not to direct
attention towards them," replied she. "What we do here must be done
adroitly, and in such a way as that it can be disavowed if necessary, or
abandoned if unsuccessful."

"Said with all your own tact, Princess," said Sir Horace, smiling. "I
can perceive, however, that you have a plan in your head already. Is it
not so?"

"No," said she, with a faint sigh; "I took wonderfully little interest
in the affair. It was one of those games where the combinations are so
few you don't condescend to learn it. Are you aware of the hour?"

"Actually three o'clock," said he, standing up. "Really, Princess, I am
quite shocked."

"And so am I," said she, smiling; "_on se compromet si facilement dans
ce bas monde_. Good night." And she courtesied and withdrew before he
had time to take his hat and retire.

CHAPTER XXV. A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER

In this age of the world, when everybody has been everywhere, seen
everything, and talked with everybody, it may savor of an impertinence
if we ask of our reader if he has ever been at Massa. It may so chance
that he has not, and, if so, as assuredly has he yet an untasted
pleasure before him.

Now, to be sure, Massa is not as it once was. The little Duchy, whose
capital it formed, has been united to a larger state. The distinctive
features of a metropolis, and the residence of a sovereign prince,
are gone. The life and stir and animation which surround a court have
subsided; grass-grown streets and deserted squares replace the busy
movement of former days; a dreamy weariness seems to have fallen over
every one, as though life offered no more prizes for exertion, and that
the day of ambition was set forever. Yet are there features about the
spot which all the chances and changes of political fortune cannot
touch. Dynasties may fall, and thrones crumble, but the eternal
Apennines will still rear their snow-clad summits towards the sky. Along
the vast plain of ancient olives the perfumed wind will still steal at
evening, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean plash lazily among the
rocks, over which the myrtle and the arbutus are hanging. There, amidst
them all, half hid in clustering vines, bathed in soft odors from
orange-groves, with plashing fountains glittering in the sun, and
foaming streams gushing from the sides of marble mountains,--there
stands Massa, ruined, decayed, and deserted, but beautiful in all its
desolation, and fairer to gaze on than many a scene wh