, but in order that you may know how
well and happy I am, and how kind and affectionate my husband is, since
I cannot thoroughly enjoy any pleasure or happiness unless I share it
with you. And I must tell you that I have had a whole field of garlic
planted for your benefit, so that when you come, we may be able to have
plenty of your favourite dishes![13]

"Ex Villa Nova, 18 Martiji, 1491."

It is plain from this letter that harmony had been restored between the
wedded pair, and that the rock on which Beatrice's happiness had seemed
likely to founder had been fortunately avoided.

The passing cloud that cast a shadow on her bright young life had rolled
away, and this letter breathes the serene happiness of the spring airs
about her. But her affection for her sister was warmer and stronger than
ever, and hardly a day passed without some fresh expression of her
impatience for Isabella's return--an impatience which both Lodovico and
Galeazzo seem to have shared.

On the 21st of April, after describing a successful wolf-hunt from
Vigevano, in which the Duke and Duchess of Milan and their courtiers had
all taken part, Lodovico writes--

"The whole distance must have been at least thirty miles, yet on the way
home both the duchesses stayed behind the rest of us, to make their
horses race one against the other; and if your Highness had been here, I
think you would have entered the lists and tried your luck against them.
And since you must come soon, and are expected by us impatiently, I will
remind your Highness to bring some of those fine Barbary steeds which
your illustrious lord the marquis keeps in his stables, and then you
will easily be able to beat all the others."

Again, on the 16th of May, Lodovico writes in the same strain--

"I am as sorry as you are that you could not be here for these
wolf-hunts, because, as you said in the letter written with your own
hand on the 5th instant, I am quite sure you would have given us proofs
of your spirit and courage. I must, however, tell you that your sister's
boldness is such that I think even you would hardly come off victor in
this contest, especially as, since you were here, she has made great
progress both in the arts of horsemanship and of hunting. All the same,
I am so impatient to see you together and to match your courage one
against the other, that it seems to me a thousand years until your
arrival!"

Beatrice, it appears, was absolutely fearless in the presen