g,"
said Del Ferice, impressively. "It is not every master who gives his
servant a pair of grey trousers. Remember that."

"Heaven bless you, Signor Conte!" exclaimed Temistocle, devoutly.

Del Ferice lost no time. He was terribly weak still, and his wound
was not entirely healed yet; but he set himself resolutely to his
writing-table, and did not rise until he had written two letters. The
first was carefully written in a large round hand, such as is used by
copyists in Italy, resembling the Gothic. It was impossible to connect
the laboriously formed and conventional letters with any particular
person. It was very short, as follows:--

"It may interest you to know that the Duchessa d'Astrardente is going to
her castle in the Sabines on the day after to-morrow."

This laconic epistle Del Ferice carefully directed to Don Giovanni
Saracinesca at his palace, and fastened a stamp upon it; but he concealed
the address from Temistocle. The second letter was longer, and written in
his own small and ornate handwriting. It was to Donna Tullia Mayer.
It ran thus:--

"You would forgive my importuning you with a letter, most charming Donna
Tullia, if you could conceive of my desolation and loneliness. For more
than three weeks I have been entirely deprived of the pleasure, the
exquisite delight, of conversing with her for whom I have suffered. I
still suffer so much. Ah! if my paper were a cloth of gold, and my pen in
moving traced characters of diamond and pearl, yet any words which speak
of you would be ineffectually honoured by such transcription! In the
miserable days and nights I have passed between life and death, it is
your image which has consoled me, the echo of your delicate voice which
has soothed my pain, the remembrance of the last hours I spent with you
which has gilded the feverish dreams of my sickness. You are the
guardian angel of a most unhappy man, Donna Tullia. Do you know it? But
for you I would have wooed death as a comforter. As it is, I have
struggled desperately to keep my grasp upon life, in the hope of once
more seeing your smile and hearing your happy laugh; perhaps--I dare not
expect it--I may receive from you some slight word of sympathy, some
little half-sighed hint that you do not altogether regret having been in
these long weeks the unconscious comforter of my sorrowing spirit and
tormented body. You would hardly know me, could you see me; but saving
for your sweet spiritual presence, which has