one, two, three, for fear of losing
time--or like the inexperienced swimmer who measures constantly the
distance to shore."

"Children, you are chattering nonsense," the princess interfered. "Here,
you lazy ones, help me to write the invitations!"

Nina arose and went to look over her aunt's shoulder. "Oh, but it is for
day after to-morrow!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that any one
will come at such short notice?" That the invitations were merely
visiting cards with "Informal Dance" written in the corner, and a date
not forty-eight hours ahead, astonished her. She asked about the
details. How could they arrange for the decorations, favors, supper? But
the princess smiled complacently. Candles were all the decoration
necessary! the favors would be trifles that could be bought in half an
hour; and as for supper--what could young people want more than lemonade
or tea, sandwiches, and cakes? The only question was where they should
dance.

The princess turned to Giovanni. "I think it is best in the picture
gallery, don't you?"

"The floor is not so smooth as in the Room of the Aenead, but come, let
us go and decide." He led the way, and they followed. The Room of the
Aenead was next that in which they were sitting. The portrait gallery,
filled with treasures from the days of Italy's grandeur, was still
beyond. It was this apartment of all others that most appealed to Nina.
For a moment she forgot why they had come into the gallery, and her
attention remained fixed upon the canvases. With the ever-vigilant
Giovanni at her side, she seemed to be walking in a day that was past,
to be enveloped in a fairy mantle! She put her hand on a group said to
be the work of Michelangelo, running her fingers over the face of one of
the figures with awe in her touch.

"To think," she said very softly, the wonder breaking through the low
tone of her voice, "to think that Michelangelo's own living hand has
been where mine is now--still more, he has been in this very room! Not
alone he, but Raphael, Correggio, and Pinturicchio! And all this is
called home by my own aunt. _Mine!_" A little quiver had come into her
throat. "It is too wonderful! Yet it gives me the strangest sensation--I
can't exactly explain it, but it is as though I were not born at all. Do
you know," she had turned to Giovanni wistfully, "I think I can
understand just a little of the way you feel--it is as though you were
securely planted like a tree. In the beginn