ange mood!" while the others drew away from
her with a faint cry of protest.

But Ecciva's momentary mood of passion passed as quickly as it came; and
she answered her companions with a tantalizing, sparkling smile,
rallying them on their seriousness, and flashing whimsicalities around
the circle like some splendid, inconsequent fire-fly.

Her dark hair, woven with coins and trinkets, fell in innumerable long
slender braids behind, from under a coronet of jessamine blossoms strung
together upon strips of palm, which clasped the clustering waves of hair
closer about her face--pure and colorless as old ivory. Her robe, of
green brocade, richly embroidered with gold, fell over full pantaloons
of scarlet satin which were tightly bound about the slender ankles by
jewelled bands, displaying to advantage the tiny feet, clad in boots of
soft, yellow kid, fantastically wrought with gold threads; the robe
parted over a bodice of yellow, open at the throat, around which chains
of gold and jewels were wound in undue profusion.

"It is thou, perchance, Ecciva, who knowest not how to win the favor of
Dama Margherita," ventured one maiden, bolder than the rest; "for with
us hath she ever been most gracious. And for Her Majesty, the Queen----"

But a sudden impulse had come to Ecciva to cover herself with glory by
making her companions sharers in the news of which she had gotten
knowledge by a fashion peculiarly her own.

"Nay: leave the Queen to the Dama Margherita for this one blissful
morning," she interrupted without ceremony: "for I have news--verily;
and they may return ere it be told. Which of you knoweth aught of the
Holy Sister Violante--she of the down-held lids and silent ways--who
slipped into the court the night of that _great signal fire_ upon the
mountain, behind the citadel?"

She scanned the eager faces triumphantly, but no one had anything to
tell.

"For verily the Sister Violante maketh part of this strange mystery,"
she proceeded after a moment of impressive silence. "She and the great
signal fire--of which no one knew aught!--so innocent were all the
gentlemen of the court--and the Bernardini most of all! But they are
parts of one romance; and the Violante came to influence Her Majesty;
the Violante, with her devout ways, wearing the habit of a holy
sisterhood to which her gracious Majesty is wont to give undue
reverence--being not apt to penetrate an intrigue--too fair a saint, by
far!--The Sister Violante