gilt armour, their steeds blazoned with peacocks; but there was
no dust, for the ground had been wetted with rosewater; no bones were
broken and no blood drawn. The gallants of the Quattrocento could not
abide what gave the salt to their grandfathers' feasts. They had other
ways of deciding issues which appeared satisfactory; and when at the end
the conquering champion went down on his two knees before the throne,
when Ippolita, with deprecating hands and downcast eyes rose timidly to
crown him, the silver trumpets pealed as shatteringly as ever over a
blood-fray, and the company cried aloud to the witnessing sky, "Evviva
Ippolita bella!" They could have done no more for a sheaf of broken
necks.

This was a great day; but at the close of it its glorious Occasion
locked herself into her chamber with breathless care, and sat tearful by
the window, with crisping hands and heaving bosom, watchful of the happy
idlers she could see afar off in the broad green Prato. Under the
shimmering trees there walked mothers, whose children dragged at their
skirts to make them look; handfasted lovers were there; a lad teased a
lass; a girl hunched her shoulder to provoke more teasing. An old priest
paused with a finger in his breviary to smile upon a heap of ragged
urchins tumbling in the dust. The air breathed benevolence, the peace of
afternoon, the end of toil. Round about, so still and easeful after the
day's labour, were the white houses, green-shuttered, half hidden in the
trees, the minarets, the domes, the coursing swallows: over them the
golden haze of afternoon, a sky yellowing at the edge, beams of dusty
sunlight coming slantwise, broad pools of shadow; further still, the far
purple shoulders of the hills. Ah, those velvet-sided, blue-bathing,
bird-haunted, wind-kissed hills!

But what was that? The jangle of little bells--the goatherds were going
out of the city! This poor prisoner then, this watched and weary beauty,
whispered to herself of her despair. "Oh, Madonna, Madonna, Madonna,"
she fretted, "let me go!"

As by miracle they announced a visitor: one Annina, a girl of the town.
Would her Majesty see her?

Ah, Heaven! but her Majesty would! In came, staring and breathing hard,
a brown-eyed girl with a shawl over her head, below it a blue stuff
gown, below all a pair of sturdy bare legs. "Corpaccio! that's a lady;
that's never my 'Polita," she stammered when she saw the white silk
wonder of the room, the jewels in he