he perfect satisfaction of himself
and understanding of the neighbours. Molly could not think that it would
have led to the slaying of Amilcare.

"What was he like, this Gregorio?" asked Bianca Maria, suddenly alert
when she had got his name smoothly.

Molly did her best--ruddy, blue-eyed, always blushing and laughing,
fair-haired, very long arms. He was a _marinajo_.

"He sounds to be so," said Bianca Maria. Then she clapped her hands and
summoned Lionardo.

The great man had no sooner appeared (noiselessly in the doorway, the
inscrutable grey-beard) than she kissed her friend and bade her go with
her women to the appointed quarters of the Nonesi. Lionardo gravely
saluted her as she went rosy out. He had seen the Virgin in the lap of
Saint Anne and cared no more for the poor original.

"Dear Lionardo," said the girl in the chair to the most learned man of
her day, "you shall do me the favour to write a letter in Latin to a
certain English lord, Messer Gregorio Dras, _Marinajo_, Londra."

"Principessa," said the great man, "I am ready. Recite your letter."

"To her very singular good lord," the letter began--the only one, so
far as I know, written by the Empress Bianca Maria to England; certainly
the only one she ever wrote to Wapping. The conceit of it was as
follows: That the lovely Lady Molly was at Nona on the confines of
Emilia and Romagna, wife of a man who would shortly be murdered in order
that she might become the mate of the assassin; that a very great lord,
son of the Holy Father, was intending for those parts, and would
probably take the same means to secure himself the position of her third
husband. The writer proposed that the Lord Gregorius, whose virtue and
celerity of judgment were well known throughout Italy, should journey
out to Nona with all reasonable despatch and repossess himself of the
lady. "Thus your lordship," it concluded, "may happily become fourth
husband of a lady, whose charms are of a sort so noble and perdurable
that they are unlikely to suffer from the arduous duties their
excellence involves. Yet such haste as is compatible with your
worshipful degree in the realm of England may be recommended. From
Milan, etc., in the year of our thankful Redemption 1494."

"How shall we send our letter speediest, my Merlin?" His enchantress
laid her emerald spell over him--O incomparable witch! Such sorcery
exalted him always. He lifted her question upon one of his towering
flights.

"Th