s who was strewing flowers before the holy
Madonna. She was an exquisite creature. Her head glowing in the sun
shine, her feet hidden amid roses and broom-blossom, she rose, tall and
fair, from a pale cloud of incense, like some seraphic apparition. Her
hair, of velvet blackness, fell in curls half-way down her shoulders;
her brow, white as alabaster and polished as a mirror, reflected the
rays of the sun; her beautiful and finely arched black eye-brows melted
into the opal of her temples; her eyelids were fast down, and the curled
black fringe of lashes veiled a glowing and liquid glance of divine
emotion; the nose, straight, slender, and cut by two easy nostrils, gave
to her profile that character of antique beauty which is vanishing day
by day from the earth. A calm and serene smile, one of those smiles
that have already left the soul and not yet reached the lips, lifted the
corners of her mouth with a pure expression of infinite beatitude and
gentleness. Nothing could be more perfect than the chin that completed
the faultless oval of this radiant countenance; her neck of a dead
white, joined her bosom in a delicious curve, and supported her head
gracefully like the stalk of a flower moved by a gentle breeze. A bodice
of crimson velvet spotted with gold outlined her delicate and finely
curved figure, and held in by means of a handsome gold lace the
countless folds of a full and flowing skirt, that fell to her feet like
those severe robes in which the Byzantine painters preferred to drape
their angels. She was indeed a marvel, and so rare and modest of beauty
had not been seen within the memory of man.

Among those who had gazed most persistently at her was observed the
young Prince of Brancaleone, one of the foremost nobles of the kingdom.
Handsome, rich, and brave, he had, at five-and-twenty, outdone the lists
of all known Don Juans. Fashionable young women spoke very ill of him
and adored him in secret; the most virtuous made it their rule to fly
from him, so impossible did resistance appear. All the young madcaps had
chosen him for their model; for his triumphs robbed many a Miltiades
of sleep, and with better cause. In short, to get an idea of this lucky
individual, it will be enough to know that as a seducer he was the
most perfect thing that the devil had succeeded in inventing in this
progressive century. The prince was dressed out for the occasion in a
sufficiently grotesque costume, which he wore with ironic