edence, of course, was rightfully her own. How like her, and
how handsome of her, thought the fond old man, thus to waive it in
favour of her senior. So he transferred his attention to the Baroness.
She was a heavy body, slow and circumspect in her motions; but at
length she had safely found her place among the silk cushions in the
stern, and the Commendatore, turning back, again held out his hand to
his sometime ward. As he was in the act of doing so, however, his ears
were startled by a sound of puffing and of churning which caused him
abruptly to face about.

"Hi! Stop!" he cried excitedly, for the launch was several yards out
in the bay; and one could hear the Baroness, equally excited,
expostulating with the man at the machine:

"He! Ferma, ferma!"

"It's all right," said Susanna, in that rather deep voice of hers,
tranquil and leisurely; "my orders."

And the launch, unperturbed, held its course towards the glow-worm
lights of Isola Nobile.

The Commendatore stared. . . .

For a matter of five seconds, his brows knitted together, his mouth
half open, the Commendatore stared, now at Susanna, now after the
bobbing lanterns of the launch,--whilst, clear in the suspension, the
choir of nightingales sobbed and shouted.

"_Your_ orders?" he faltered at last. Many emotions were concentrated
in the pronoun.

"Yes," said Susanna, with a naturalness that perhaps was studied. "The
first act of my reign."

He had never known her to give an order before, without asking
permission; and this, in any case, was such an incomprehensible order.
How, for instance, was she to get back to the palace?

"But how on earth," he puzzled, "will you get back to----"

"Oh, I 'm not returning to Isola Nobile tonight," Susanna jauntily
mentioned, her chin a little perked up in the air. Then, with the
sweetest smile--through which there pierced, perhaps, just a faint
glimmer of secret mischief?--"I 'm starting on my wander-year," she
added, and waved her hand imperially towards the open sea.

It was a progression of surprises for the tall, thin old Commendatore.
No sooner had Susanna thus bewilderingly spoken, than the rub and dip
of oars became audible, rhythmically nearing; and a minute after, from
the outer darkness, a row-boat, white and slender, manned by two rowers
in smart nautical uniforms, shot forward into the light, and drew up
alongside the quay.

"A boat from the _Fiorimondo_," he gasped, in stupefaction.