ss. The people, too,--why, they are shouting now. Say the
exact hour when you will be ready."

"To-morrow, Excellenza, if you listen for it,--or should you not, all
the same--strange music will be heard. The stroke of one shall be the
first from yonder bell," pointing to the bell adorned with girls and
garlands, "that stroke shall fall there, where the hand of Una clasps
Dua's. The stroke of one shall sever that loved clasp. To-morrow, then,
at one o'clock, as struck here, precisely here," advancing and placing
his finger upon the clasp, "the poor mechanic will be most happy once
more to give you liege audience, in this his littered shop. Farewell
till then, illustrious magnificoes, and hark ye for your vassal's
stroke."

His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge, he
moved with ostentatious deference towards the scuttle, as if so far to
escort their exit. But the junior magistrate, a kind-hearted man,
troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurking
beneath the foundling's humble mien, and in Christian sympathy more
distressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising what
might be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhaps
uninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things, this good
magistrate had glanced sadly, sideways from the speaker, and thereupon
his foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging face
of the Hour Una.

"How is this, Bannadonna?" he lowly asked, "Una looks unlike her
sisters."

"In Christ's name, Bannadonna," impulsively broke in the chief, his
attention, for the first attracted to the figure, by his associate's
remark, "Una's face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as
painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca."

"Surely, Bannadonna," lowly resumed the milder magistrate, "you meant
the twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air. But see, the
smile of Una seems but a fatal one. 'Tis different."

While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly,
from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy would
be accounted for. As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the
scuttle's curb.

Bannadonna spoke:

"Excellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the face
of Una, I do, indeed perceive some little variance. But look all round
the bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond. Because
there is a law in art--but th