ng all night, and all night the Piazza Grande was
alive, a flickering field of torches and passing and repassing throngs.
"Evviva Madonna! Hail, Duchess of Nona!" were the cries they gave. And
above, at an arched window, haloed by candle-light, the staring lady of
the land, stiffened and relaxed, played out the last functions of her
generous body, in return for the people's acclamation.

Bianca Maria, Queen of the Romans by virtue of proxy and the Sacrament,
spurred into the city of Nona next noon at the head of a plumed escort.
There, at the fatal window, she saw the whole truth in a flash.

"_O lasso!_ Her third husband was her last, I see," she said, and bit
her lip to sting the tears back.

"Majesty," said Cesare, hat in hand at her stirrup, "it is not quite so.
Grifone was not quick enough for the other fellow. Messer Death is
actually her second husband."

"Now I have something for which to thank our Lord God," said Bianca
Maria. "Let her be decently buried, but not here."

It was, however, explained that for reasons of policy the Duchess of
Nona must share tombs with the Duke. Serviceable in death as in life,
there where she was marketed lies her fragrant dust; fragrant now, I
hope, since all the passion is out.

I almost despair of winning your applause for poor Molly Lovel, yet will
add this finally in her justification. Women are most loved when they
are lovely, most lovely when they are meek. This is not to say that they
will be worthily loved or loyally: there are two sides to a bargain. Yet
this one thing more: they are neither meek nor lovely unless they love.
And since Molly Lovel, on my showing, was both in a superlative degree,
it follows that she must have loved much. She was ill repaid while she
lived; let now that measure be meted her which was accorded another
Molly whose surname was Magdalene.

MESSER CINO AND THE LIVE COAL

I

It is not generally known that the learned Aristotle once spent the
night in a basket dangled midway betwixt attic and basement of a castle;
nor that, having suffered himself to be saddled for the business, he
went on all-fours, ambling round the terrace-walk with a lady on his
back, a lady who, it is said, plied the whip with more heartiness than
humanity. But there seems no doubt of the fact. The name of the lady
(she was Countess of Cyprus), the time of the escapade, which was upon
the sage's return from India in the train of the triumphant
Alexan