movements perchance indicate nervous exaltation? At
all events, the ever-beautiful Caterina was greatly
changed.

"There goes the hour!" she said to her
attendant, as they both were busying themselves
about the table. "What o'clock was it, Nina,
when you gave the padrone his broth?"

"Oh! more than an hour ago," replied the
pretty Abigail; "I gave it him nearly half an
hour before the time, to make sure. He never
keeps awake long after taking it."

"It was well thought of. But, Nina, run up
and see if he is asleep. You can tread so that
a condemned man listening for the step of the
bargello to take him to the block would not
hear you. Creep to the bedside, and see that
he is really asleep."

"That I can do, signora! But, Holy Virgin!
how you trouble yourself about nothing.
As if anything could be heard from this room
to the room up-stairs looking to the street, and
the roof over us a solid arch, too!"

"From this room, perhaps not; but I am
afraid of the front door, just under his windows.
I would not that he should be disturbed! . . .
Run up, Nina, there's a good girl!"

"Disturb him! O! not for the world!" said
Nina, with half a tone of sneer in her voice, as
she glanced with a look of intelligence to her
mistress, from whom it obtained no response.
And she tripped off on her errand as she spoke.

Caterina, who seemed unable to remain still
for a moment, turned to a glass that stood above
a console-table at one side of the room, as soon
as the maid was gone, and employed herself in
bestowing some of those little improving touches
on her hair and dress, which women appear
never to consider superfluous.

"All right, signora!" cried Nina, with a toss
of her pretty head, as she returned to the supper-room;
"he is sleeping like a baby in a cradle,
and there is no need to think about him any
more till to-morrow morning, thank the saints!"

"That is well," said the young wife; but she
gave a little sigh as she said it. Then, as she
moved round the table for the hundredth time,
she went on: "But what is this, Nina mia?
These are the second-best napkins. I wanted
to have the Holland damask to-night."

"I am sure those are good enough for their
highnesses," said Nina; "and they are what you
have always used, signora."

"Ah! But, Nina, I expect a different sort of
guest to-night—you know who. And don't you
know that he must always have been used to
much richer plenishing than anything I can put
before him? Run, quick, and get out the damask
napkins."

Just as she said this, three gentle but distinct
taps on the glass of a window by the side of the
front door of the house were heard. Both women
gave a little start, and the blood mantled
high in Caterina's cheeks and forehead, and then
as suddenly retreated to her heart.

"There they are!" cried Nina, hastily going
with cat-like pace to the door, and taking as she
went an oil-cruise in her hand, which stood on a
sideboard near the door of the room. Before
opening she poured a drop or two on both
hinges of the great door and on the lock, and was
thus enabled to admit those who had knocked
without, the slightest noise.

They were two young men, patricians evidently,
by the rapiers at their sides, but not, as
far as could be judged by their appearance, of
those who formed the gay and youthful circle
that surrounded the young grand-duke. One
was Signor Jacopo Serselli, and the other Signor
Vincenzio Carlini.

Both were, at the period of their visit to
Caterina, young men of some twenty-five years
old, or thereaway.

As they came in, followed by Nina, with the
oil-cruise in her hand, Caterina was again standing
before the glass on the console.

"What a treasure you have in our friend
little Nina here, Signora Caterina!" said Serselli,
as he stepped up to the lady, and kissed
her hand. "A lout of a serving-man would have
taken the key to open the door. La Nina
understands matters better. She takes the oil-
flask!"

"And talking of that, lady fair," said Carlini,
in his turn kissing the lady's hand, "how is his
worship? He sleeps well o' nights, I hope?"

"Better than you will, I doubt, scapegrace
as you are, if you ever come to be his age, which
is hardly to be thought," said Caterina smilingly,
shaking a slender rosy forefinger at him. "Ser
Giustino has no remembrances that should keep
him from sleeping."

"Oh, of course not! One understands all that.
Youth is a new invention of the fiend. There
were no young men, and specially no young
women, in Ser Giustino's day. And when we
have played out our playtime, we shall shake our
frosty old heads at the youngsters, and wonder
at the wickedness of the age. But sound sleeping
is a most valuable quality in an old man,
and specially in an old husband, as some think.
And then, as Serselli says, Nina is such a treasure!
—an invaluable nurse! If the unblemished
conscience of the admirable Ser Giustino should
fail to procure him that profound repose, which
is so necessary at his time of life—to all parties
concerned—Nina could at need show herself
mistress of higher flights than that trick of oiling
a rusty hinge, or I am mistaken."

"What on earth do you mean, Signor Vincenzo?"
said Caterina, really puzzled; "and
how do you know anything about La Nina's
capabilities?"

"Aha! carissima Signora mia!" returned
Carlini; "perhaps I knew La Baffi before you
did."

A transient cloud passed over the still girlish
brow of the young wife, corresponding to an
equally transient shade of doubt in her mind,
which had not time, however, to assume the full
consistency of suspicion before it was chased
by the stronger interest that was occupying her
thoughts.

For some time past, as may easily be gathered
from the facts with which the reader has become