e. These three
young ladies, all matrimonially inclined, but Nera specially, had
carefully watched the instant when Nobili left his seat. Then they had
followed him closely. It was intended that he should escort them home.
Nera has already decided what she will say to him touching the Orsetti
ball that evening and the cotillon, which she means to dance with
him if she can. But Nobili, with whom they come up under the portico,
merely responds to their salutation with a low bow, raises his hat,
and stands aside to make way for them. He does not even offer to hand
them to their carriage. They pass, and are gone.

As Count Nobili descends the three steps into the piazza, he is
conscious that all eyes are fixed upon him; that every head is
uncovered. He pauses, casts his eyes round at the upturned faces,
raises his hat and smiles, then puts his hand into his pocket, and
takes out a gold-piece, which he gives to the nearest beggar. The
beggar, seizing the gold-piece, blesses him, and hopes that "Heaven
will render to him according to his merits." Other beggars, from every
corner, are about to rush upon him; but Nobili deftly escapes from
these as he had escaped from the Marchesa Boccarini and her daughters,
and is gone.

"A lucky face," mumbles old Carlotta, working her under lip, as she
fixes her bleared eyes on him--"a lucky face! He will choose the
winning number in the lottery, and the evil eye will never harm him."

The music had now ceased. The mass was over. The vast congregation
poured through the triple doors into the piazza, and mingled with
the outer crowd. For a while both waved to and fro, like billows on
a rolling sea, then settled down into one compact current, which,
flowing onward, divided and dispersed itself through the openings into
the various streets abutting on the piazza.

Last of all, Carlotta, Brigitta, and Cassandra, leave their corner.
They are speedily engulfed in the shadows of a neighboring alley, and
are seen no more.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MARCHESA GUINIGI.

The stern and repulsive aspect of the exterior of the Marchesa
Guinigi's palace belied the antique magnificence within.

Turning to the right under an archway from the damp, moss-grown court
over which the tower throws a perpetual shadow, a broad staircase,
closed by a door of open ironwork, leads to the first story (the
_piano nobile_). Here an anteroom, with Etruscan urns and fragments
of mediaeval sculpture let into the wa