acquainted, La Signora Canacci had entered on
a manner of life, which, to say the least, might
have been deemed dangerous, and which necessitated
the practice of deception on her husband.
But as yet the extent of her departure from the
good resolutions, with which she had started on
her path of married life, had not exceeded this
entertaining of cavaliers, without her husband's
knowledge. Nor, although abundance of what
most of the Florentine beauties, her contemporaries,
might have called "temptation," had
been thrown in her path, had she hitherto been
visited by any feeling calculated to lead her into
more serious dereliction of her duty. But the
Carnival, that season which seems carefully to
have been arranged for the purpose of providing
occasion for lenten penitence, was just over;
and in the course of those festivities and amusements,
which still in some measure, but in the
days of which we are speaking to a much
greater degree, brought the different classes of
Florentine society together, Caterina had more
than once danced with perhaps the most "dangerous"
man in Florence, the splendid and handsome
Jacopo Salviati, Duke of San Giuliano.

The pleasure-seeking duke had been at once
smitten with the truly surpassing beauty of
Caterina, and had of course found little difficulty
in obtaining the promise of a presentation to her
from some one of those who were in the habit
of frequenting her house.

This presentation was to take place on the
evening of which we have been speaking; and
Salviati was to make his first visit to the house
in the Via dei Pilastri.

"What was the hour you named to the duke,
Ser Vincenzo, as that of our little supper?"
asked Caterina.

"Half-past ten, French, time, I told him,"
replied Carlini; "and you may depend on Salviati's
gallantry to bring him to your door punctually
at that hour. And now, by your leave,
fair lady, I will go to the door, and wait for his
excellency, that there may be no mistake about
the house, and no noise about letting him in."

Signor Carlini had not to do duty as porter at
the door very long. The Duca de Salviati was,
as his friend had prophesied, as punctual to his
appointment as ever languishing lover was.
Caterina and Signor Serselli had been left together
but a very few minutes when Carlini returned,
ushering into the modestly-appointed
supper-room, with every manifestation of the
most exaggerated obsequiousness, a very splendid-
looking cavalier.

The age, to which this history belongs, was
one specially marked by gorgeousness of personal
adornment and equipment. In no part of Europe
was extravagance in this respect carried to a
greater height, than in the capital of the wealthy
and ostentatiously magnificent Medicean dukes.
And at the court of the young and pleasure-loving
Ferdinand the Second, there was no man
who could vie in nobility of birth, in wealth, in
personal advantages, and in magnificence, with
Jacopo Salviati, Duke of San Giuliano. A favourite
with the young sovereign, whose senior
he was by but a year or two, he was the soul of
the court, the leading spirit in every revel, the
model on which the rising generation strove to
form themselves, and the loadstar of most of
the brightest eyes in Florence.

Salviati, when duly presented to Caterina,
accosted her as he would have done the noblest
lady of the court. Far from falling in with that
free-and-easy, half mock-ceremonious, half-bantering
tone, which Serselli and Carlini permitted
themselves towards her, his manner was courtly
and respectful, though it made no attempt whatever
to hide his very unmistakable admiration
for his beautiful hostess. During supper he
exerted himself to shine before her. The little
party remained at table far into the night. And
Caterina thought that she had never till now
known the pleasure of social intercourse, or seen
a man really worthy of a woman's love.

From that night Jacopo Salviati became a
very frequent visitor at the quiet respectable
house in the Via dei Pilastri. The ladies of the
court complained that Salviati was not like
himself of late; he was quite a changed man.
And, in truth, he was so—as far as an engrossing
passion can change a man.

Caterina, too, was a changed woman. The
old feeling of the utter emptiness of all things
returned, with the difference that it was confined
to the hours when Salviati was not there.
All the interest and vitality of her life were
concentrated into the hours of his almost nightly
visits. She loved for the first time; and
now for the first time her marriage with Ser
Giustino, and more still, the consequence of her
recent life, seemed monstrous; and she marvelled
in all sincerity how such things had been possible
to her.

And as the summer drew on, and the duke
was less frequently obliged to show himself at
court, it was rarely that he did not tap at the
now well-known window at the usual hour. But
these nightly visits were made with every precaution
for securing secresy that could be
imagined. Ser Giustino, under Nina's careful
nursing, always slept with admirable regularity;
and the lovers dared to think that they were
happy in each other's love.

Now ready, price 5s. 6d, bound in cloth,
THE SEVENTH VOLUME
OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
Containing from Numbers 151 to 176.
The Six preceding Volumes are always to be had.
They include the following Novels:—
A TALE OF TWO CITIES. By CHARLES DICKENS.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE. By WILKIE COLLINS.
A DAY'S RIDE, A LIFE'S ROMANCE. By CHARLES
LEVER.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS. By CHARLES DICKENS.
A STRANGE STORY. By SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

The Right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.