e;
but her lover, distressful in his happiness, would sometimes obtain from
his beloved a promise that led her to the edge of what many women call
"the gulf," and thus found himself obliged to be satisfied with plucking
the flowers at the edge, incapable of daring more than to pull off their
petals, and smother his torture in his heart.

They had wandered out together that morning, repeating such a hymn of
love as the birds warbled in the branches. On their return, the youth,
whose situation can only be described by comparing him to the cherubs
represented by painters as having only a head and wings, had been so
impassioned as to venture to hint a doubt as to the Duchess' entire
devotion, so as to bring her to the point of saying: "What proof do you
need?"

The question had been asked with a royal air, and Memmi had ardently
kissed the beautiful and guileless hand. Then he suddenly started up in
a rage with himself, and left the Duchess. Massimilla remained in her
indolent attitude on the sofa; but she wept, wondering how, young and
handsome as she was, she could fail to please Emilio. Memmi, on the
other hand, knocked his head against the tree-trunks like a hooded crow.

But at this moment a servant came in pursuit of the young Venetian to
deliver a letter brought by express messenger.

Marco Vendramini,--a name also pronounced Vendramin, in the Venetian
dialect, which drops many final letters,--his only friend, wrote to tell
him that Facino Cane, Prince of Varese, had died in a hospital in Paris.
Proofs of his death had come to hand, and the Cane-Memmi were Princes
of Varese. In the eyes of the two young men a title without wealth being
worthless, Vendramin also informed Emilio, as a far more important fact,
of the engagement at the _Fenice_ of the famous tenor Genovese, and the
no less famous Signora Tinti.

Without waiting to finish the letter, which he crumpled up and put in
his pocket, Emilio ran to communicate this great news to the Duchess,
forgetting his heraldic honors.

The Duchess knew nothing of the strange story which made la Tinti an
object of curiosity in Italy, and Emilio briefly repeated it.

This illustrious singer had been a mere inn-servant, whose wonderful
voice had captivated a great Sicilian nobleman on his travels. The
girl's beauty--she was then twelve years old--being worthy of her voice,
the gentleman had had the moderation to have brought her up, as Louis
XV. had Mademoiselle de Roma