the people, and a
_Trecento_ costume ball at the Palazzo Vecchio for those who had
influence to procure tickets and money to pay for them.

Mamie, greatly daring, proclaimed her intention of wearing the "_umile
ed onesto sanguigno_" of Beatrice.

"You will be my Dante, Don Filippo? Momma is going in cloth of gold as
Giovanna degli Albizzi."

The Marchese looked inquiringly at the Prince. "Shall you add to the
gaiety of nations, or at least of Florence?"

The young man shrugged his broad shoulders. "I suppose so." He was
well established as _cavalier servente_ now in the Lorenzoni
household, and it was understood that Mamie would be a princess some
day. The girl was so young that the engagement could scarcely be
announced yet.

"I guess we must wait until you are eighteen, Mamie," her mother said.
"Keep him amused and don't be exacting or he'll quit. He is still sore
from his jilting."

"I can manage him," the girl boasted, but she had no real influence
over him now. The forbidden fruit had allured him, but since it was
his for the gathering it seemed sour--as indeed it was, and he was not
the man to allow himself to be tied to the apron-strings of a child.
When he was in a good humour he watched his future wife amusedly as
she metaphorically and sometimes literally danced before him, but he
discouraged the excess of audacity that had attracted him formerly,
perhaps because he scarcely relished the idea of a Princess Tor di
Rocca singing, "_O che la gioia mi fe morir_."

Probably he regretted gentle, amenable Edna. At times he was grimly,
impenetrably silent, and often he said things that would have wounded
a tender heart past healing. Fortunately there were none such in the
Palazzo Lorenzoni.

"I shall be ridiculous as the Alighieri, and you must forgive me,
Mamie, if I say that one scarcely sees in you a reincarnation of
Monna Beatrice."

"Red is my colour," the girl answered rather defiantly.

The Marchese laughed gratingly.

Filippo dined with the Lorenzoni on the night of the ball. He wore the
red _lucco_, but had declined to crown himself with laurel. His gaudy
Muse, however, had no such scruples, and her black curls were wreathed
with silver leaves. The Prince was not the only guest; there was a
slender, flaxen-haired girl from New York dressed after Botticelli's
Judith, an artillery captain as Lorenzo dei Medici, and another man, a
Roman, in the grey of the order of San Francesco.

"Poppa left f