service. There is no question of either difficulty or
danger. I simply wish to know something that I
am sure you can tell me, or, at all events, can find
out for me. If I am not wrong in flattering myself
that the occasion will be not disagreeable to you, be,
at an hour after the Ave Maria to-morrow evening,
at the little door in the side alley to the left of the
palazzo. I do not think you can have forgotten the
way to it.

Yours, as sincerely as ever, if you will,

CECILIA.

(Superscribed)—To the most Illustrious Cavalier,
the Signore Vincenzo Carlini.

This missive brought our acquaintance of the
Via dei Pilastri to the little side-door in the
alley between the Palazzo Neri and the next
house to it, punctually at the hour named. He
had forgotten neither the unobtrusive little door,
nor the dark narrow stair within it communicating
directly with the lady's bower, and with
no other part of the house—a remarkable
architectural arrangement still to be seen in
existence in some of the noble homes in
Florence. In fact, it was the only part of the
mansion with which the Cavalier Carlini was
acquainted. Though of patrician birth, he
was not of those who composed the inner
circle which revolved immediately around the
grand-ducal centre. And from the time that the
intimacy which occasioned his visits to the
postern had ceased, he had never either seen the
interior of the Palazzo Neri, or spoken with its
mistress. Now, as he betook himself to obey
her summons, his meditations were more occupied
with the terms in which the contessa's note
was subscribed, than with the other contents of
it; and he reflected on them more with reference
to that clinking of the bucket at the bottom of
the well, of which he had spoken to Caterina
Canacci, than in any point of view more flattering
to the still beautiful Contessa Cecilia. The lady, on
her side, was bent only on obtaining the information
of which she was in search, and provided
she got it, cared comparatively little what price
she paid for it, in whatever kind of coin might
be most acceptable to her old acquaintance.

Under these circumstances they were not long
in understanding each other.

"Stuff and nonsense, my good friend!" replied
the lady, to a declaration of Carlini, that he really
could throw no light on the matter, but would
endeavour to obtain the required information—
for the fact was, that he was anxious to gain
time to think the business over a little before
betraying a secret without knowing what use it
was to be made to serve—" stuff and nonsense,
my good friend! You can tell me what I want to
know this instant, if you will. Don't I know
that you and the duke hunt in couples? Ah!
you think that we women know nothing of the
proceedings of our lords and masters outside their
own palace doors. Pooh! pooh! Jacopo Salviati
has some love affair on his hands which utterly
absorbs him; some passion which has taken hold
of him in good earnest. I want to know who is
the object of it. A mere caprice! a curious
whim! But I will know, and I am quite sure
that you can tell me."

"I think I can undertake to say," returned
Carlini, " that Salviati has formed no attachment
to any lady of your world. If there is anything
of the sort, it must be a mere caprice for some
pretty face in quite another class."

"Thank you for nothing, my most prudent
Vincenzo. I could have told you as much as
that. If anybody of our world was in question,
I need not have asked you for information. I
am very sure that it is some mere nobody; but
I have reasons for choosing to know who this
nobody is. Will you tell me; or must I find out
from somebody else?"

"But, Signora mia, pardon me if I ask for
what purpose the Contessa Cecilia dei Neri can
possibly want to know the particulars of vulgar
loves, that can in no wise have any interest for
the world in which she lives?"

"Vulgar loves! Cospetto! "When such a
man as the Duca di San Giuliano—"

"Why, carissima mia Signora, dukes will have
their amusements like more vulgar mortals. Is
it to your ladyship that one has to confess the
fact?"

"Amusements! but I tell you Salviati is
utterly absorbed by this new passion. He is
lost, extinguished in his own sphere. Nothing
but a veritable passion could have changed the
man so totally as he is changed."

"Why! your ladyship knows how Salviati is
situated at home. You know what the Duchess
Veronica is."

"We all know that, I think, pretty well; but
what in Heaven's name has the Duchess Veronica
to do in the matter?"

"Why, gentilissima Signora Cecilia, the
matter stands thus: if it were, perchance, the
case that any one of your ladyship's friends
had any special interest in our noble friend
Jacopo"—and he glanced archly at the lady as he
spoke—"and if I could succeed in learning the
whereabout of this little bourgeoise amourette,
if amourette there be, why, all is fair in love!
Our amiable Tuscan dames understand and
practise the law of the gentle science in all
courtesy and mutual good feeling, and there
would be no harm done; but with the Duchess
Veronica the case is different. She is not one
of us .... Tuscans," he added, as his quick eye
noted a slight curl on the lip of the lady; " still
less is she one of you. If the knowledge of the
duke's peccadilloes should come to her ears, you
know real mischief might be the result; you
would not make any such use as that, of the
information you are seeking?"

"Now, really, old friend, you ought to know
me better than that," returned the Contessa;
into whose mind an idea had glided, rapid as the
lightning flash, at the last words of Carlini.
"The real truth is, then, that one of my friends,
as you say"—and she returned the arch look of
intelligence with which he had previously
accompanied the same words "—has a certain