ant and learned the good
news that his child was a son. Hitherto his greatest satisfaction had
been to hear the clock strike five when he had imagined that it was only
four.

The child, however, was something entirely new, and his heart, which
usually beat as slowly as a clock that is running down, quickened its
pulsations whenever he thought of his son. During the first weeks of
its life he sat for hours at a time beside the gilt cradle, staring
thoughtfully through his eye-glass at the future Wendelin XVII. Soon
this occupation ceased to interest him, and he drifted along once more
on the sluggish waves of his former existence, from minute to minute,
from hour to hour.

The queen, his companion on this placid journey, had grown to be like
him in many ways. The two yawned as other people breathe. They knew no
desires, for as everything they possessed was always the best that could
be had, to-morrow could give them nothing better than to-day. Their life
was like a long poplar alley through which they wandered lazily side by
side.

Pepe, the major-domo, after Wendelin came to the throne, was made
body-servant to the king; he, above all others, was inclined to regard
his master, born under a lucky star and possessing everything that
one could desire, as a person favoured by Fortune; yet, after he
had listened to his sighs and murmurs through many a quiet night, he
reflected: "I am better off in my own shoes."

Pepe kept his own counsel and confided to no one save old Nonna what
he knew. She, too, had learned to be discreet and consequently did
not repeat his confidences even to the duchess, who had enough to bear
without that additional burden.

How pale her darling seemed to her when she saw him in the glass! Yet,
even on the worst days, he was busy at his place in the piazza, where
the cathedral, which he had been building for three years, was nearing
completion. The greatest energy at that moment was being expended on the
dome, which rose proudly over the crossing of the nave and transepts.
Whenever Nonna looked over the duchess' shoulder to get a glimpse of
George, he was always seen there so long as the sun was in the heavens.
Many times the hearts of the two women stood still when they saw him
climb to the highest point of the scaffolding in order to direct the
work from there. Fate had only to make his foot slip one little inch or
decree that a wasp should sting him on the finger to put an end to
his existen