y, some under protest, some most unbecomingly.

In the end of the year 1887 old Leone Saracinesca is still alive, being
eighty-two years of age. His massive head has sunk a little between his
slightly rounded shoulders, and his white beard is no longer cut short
and square, but flows majestically down upon his broad breast. His step
is slow, but firm still, and when he looks up suddenly from under his
wrinkled lids, the fire is not even yet all gone from his eyes. He is
still contradictory by nature, but he has mellowed like rare wine in the
long years of prosperity and peace. When the change came in Rome he was
in the mountains at Saracinesca, with his daughter-in-law, Corona and
her children. His son Giovanni, generally known as Prince of Sant'
Ilario, was among the volunteers at the last and sat for half a day upon
his horse in the Pincio, listening to the bullets that sang over his
head while his men fired stray shots from the parapets of the public
garden into the road below. Giovanni is fifty-two years old, but though
his hair is grey at the temples and his figure a trifle sturdier and
broader than of old, he is little changed. His son, Orsino, who will
soon be of age, overtops him by a head and shoulders, a dark youth,
slender still, but strong and active, the chief person in this portion
of my chronicle. Orsino has three brothers of ranging ages, of whom the
youngest is scarcely twelve years old. Not one girl child has been given
to Giovanni and Corona and they almost wish that one of the sturdy
little lads had been a daughter. But old Saracinesca laughs and shakes
his head and says he will not die till his four grandsons are strong
enough to bear him to his grave upon their shoulders.

Corona is still beautiful, still dark, still magnificent, though she has
reached the age beyond which no woman ever goes until after death. There
are few lines in the noble face and such as are there are not the scars
of heart wounds. Her life, too, has been peaceful and undisturbed by
great events these many years. There is, indeed, one perpetual anxiety
in her existence, for the old prince is an aged man and she loves him
dearly. The tough strength must give way some day and there will be a
great mourning in the house of Saracinesca, nor will any mourn the dead
more sincerely than Corona. And there is a shade of bitterness in the
knowledge that her marvellous beauty is waning. Can she be blamed for
that? She has been beautiful