e prospect
of paying a visit to Genoa before long." And in an affectionate letter
to her mother, she says that sometimes in the middle of the finest hunt
she remembers with a pang how long it is since she has seen her, and how
far away she is from Ferrara, and the thought throws a shadow over the
brightest sunshine and the gayest pastimes.

After a succession of boar hunts at Novara and Mortara, Lodovico and
Beatrice took their guests to Milan on the 15th of September, and
Isabella entered the capital on horseback between the two young
duchesses, while "the old Duchess Bona," she tells her husband, "and her
daughter Madonna Bianca, with many other ladies, were awaiting me in my
rooms in the Castello, the same suite which Signor Lodovico occupied at
the time of his wedding."

The duke's mother still remained at court, and occupied rooms in the
Castello, although she made no secret of her aversion for her powerful
brother-in-law, and was secretly intriguing against him with her nephew,
Charles VIII. At her request the French king wrote a letter to Lodovico,
desiring him to give the duchess's mother leave to come to France for
his wife Anne of Brittany's confinement. But the Moro, fearing the
effect of Bona's presence at the French court, courteously declined
Charles's invitation, alleging as an excuse the fact that both Bona's
daughter-in-law, the Duchess Isabella, and her young sister-in-law, his
own wife Beatrice, were expecting similar events early in the next
year, while her daughter Bianca was of marriageable age and needed her
mother's protection. At Milan new pleasures awaited Isabella. Theatrical
representations in honour of Duke Ercole, were given by the Delle Torre
family and other noble houses, and Isabella spent long days with her
sister in the park and beautiful gardens of the Castello, among the
roses and fountains which Lodovico loved. He was never tired of
beautifying and enlarging the grounds, which now extended three miles
round the Castello, and sent to Mantua for a pair of swans to adorn the
lake, saying how much he liked to watch the movements of these
white-plumed birds upon the water. To his sister-in-law, as Isabella
always repeated in her letters, the Moro showed himself the kindest and
most generous of hosts, and was unwearied in providing for her
amusements and gratification.

"To-day," she writes on the evening after her arrival at Milan, "Signor
Lodovico showed me the treasure, which Your H