ance intently. Her own was suddenly
illumined.

"Ah, I understand," she proclaimed, vigorously nodding. "The Signorino
desires to know who she is personally!"

"I express myself in obscure paraphrases," said he; "but you, with
your unfailing Italian simpatia, have divined the exact shade of my
intention."

"She is the widow of the Duca di Santangiolo," said Marietta.

"Enfin vous entrez dans la voie des aveux," said Peter.

"Scusi?" said Marietta.

"I am glad to hear she's a widow," said he. "She--she might strike a
casual observer as somewhat young, for a widow."

"She is not very old," agreed Marietta; "only twenty-six, twenty-seven.
She was married from the convent. That was eight, nine years ago. The
Duca has been dead five or six."

"And was he also young and lovely?"

Peter asked.

"Young and lovely! Mache!" derided Marietta. "He was past forty. He was
fat. But he was a good man."

"So much the better for him now," said Peter.

"Gia," approved Marietta, and solemnly made the Sign of the Cross.

"But will you have the kindness to explain to me," the young man
continued, "how it happens that the Duchessa di Santangiolo speaks
English as well as I do?"

The old woman frowned surprise.

"Come? She speaks English?"

"For all the world like an Englishman," asseverated Peter.

"Ah, well," Marietta reflected, "she was English, you know."

"Oho!" exclaimed Peter. "She was English! Was she?" He bore a little on
the tense of the verb. "That lets in a flood of light. And--and what, by
the bye, is she now?" he questioned.

"Ma! Italian, naturally, since she married the Duca," Marietta replied.

"Indeed? Then the leopard can change his spots?" was Peter's inference.

"The leopard?" said Marietta, at a loss.

"If the Devil may quote Scripture for his purpose, why may n't I?"
Peter demanded. "At all events, the Duchessa di Santangiolo is a very
beautiful woman."

"The Signorino has seen her?" Marietta asked.

"I have grounds for believing so. An apparition--a phantom of
delight--appeared on the opposite bank of the tumultuous Aco, and
announced herself as my landlady. Of course, she may have been an
impostor--but she made no attempt to get the rent. A tall woman, in
white, with hair, and a figure, and a voice like cooling streams, and an
eye that can speak volumes with a look."

Marietta nodded recognition.

"That would be the Duchessa."

"She's a very beautiful duchessa," reiterated Peter.