s certainly a momentous one, but these, by common consent,
are not test cases. A couple of years after her first husband's death,
she had accepted the hand and the name of a Neapolitan music-master, ten
years younger than herself, and with no fortune but his fiddle-bow. The
marriage was most unhappy, and the Maestro Grandoni was suspected of
using the fiddle-bow as an instrument of conjugal correction. He had
finally run off with a prima donna assoluta, who, it was to be hoped,
had given him a taste of the quality implied in her title. He was
believed to be living still, but he had shrunk to a small black spot
in Madame Grandoni's life, and for ten years she had not mentioned
his name. She wore a light flaxen wig, which was never very artfully
adjusted, but this mattered little, as she made no secret of it. She
used to say, "I was not always so ugly as this; as a young girl I had
beautiful golden hair, very much the color of my wig." She had worn
from time immemorial an old blue satin dress, and a white crape shawl
embroidered in colors; her appearance was ridiculous, but she had an
interminable Teutonic pedigree, and her manners, in every presence, were
easy and jovial, as became a lady whose ancestor had been cup-bearer
to Frederick Barbarossa. Thirty years' observation of Roman society had
sharpened her wits and given her an inexhaustible store of anecdotes,
but she had beneath her crumpled bodice a deep-welling fund of Teutonic
sentiment, which she communicated only to the objects of her particular
favor. Rowland had a great regard for her, and she repaid it by wishing
him to get married. She never saw him without whispering to him that
Augusta Blanchard was just the girl.

It seemed to Rowland a sort of foreshadowing of matrimony to see Miss
Blanchard standing gracefully on his hearth-rug and blooming behind
the central bouquet at his circular dinner-table. The dinner was very
prosperous and Roderick amply filled his position as hero of the feast.
He had always an air of buoyant enjoyment in his work, but on this
occasion he manifested a good deal of harmless pleasure in his glory.
He drank freely and talked bravely; he leaned back in his chair with
his hands in his pockets, and flung open the gates of his eloquence.
Singleton sat gazing and listening open-mouthed, as if Apollo in person
were talking. Gloriani showed a twinkle in his eye and an evident
disposition to draw Roderick out. Rowland was rather regretful,