ould be at mass
to-morrow--that would do. Meantime the cook produced a most triumphal
cake hot and hot, and the transports of poor Messer Cino were forgotten.

Dante's reply to his copy was so characteristic that I must anticipate a
little to speak of it. He confined himself almost entirely to
technicalities, strongly objecting to the sestett with its three rhymes
in the middle, upon which Cino had prided himself in no small degree.
The only thing he seemed to care for was the tenth line, "A dolce morte
sotto dolce inganno," which you may render, if you like, "To a sweet
death under so sweet deceit"; but he said there were too many "o's" in
it. "As to the subject of your poem," he wrote in a postscript, "love is
a thing of so terrible a nature that not lightly is it to be entered,
since it cannot be lightly left; and, seeing the latter affair is much
out of a man's power, he should be wary with the former, wherein at
present he would appear to have some discretion, though not very much."
This was chilly comfort; but by the time it reached him Cino was beyond
the assault of chills.

Equally interesting should it be to record the conversation of Monna
Selvaggia with her discreet friend Nicoletta; yet I cannot record
everything. Nicoletta had a lover of her own, a most proper poet, who
had got far beyond the mere accidence of the science where Cino was
fumbling now; you might say that he was at theory. Nicoletta, moreover,
was sixteen years old, a marriageable age, an age indeed at which not to
have a lover would have been a disgrace. She had had sonnets and
_canzoni_ addressed to her since she was twelve; but then she had two
elder sisters and only one brother--a monk! This made a vast difference.
The upshot was that when Cino met the two ladies at the charmed spot of
yesterday's encounter he uncovered before them and stood with folded
hands, as if at his prayers. Consequently he missed the very pretty air
of consciousness with which Selvaggia passed him by, the heightened
colour of her, the lowered eyes and restless fingers, Also he missed
Nicoletta's demure shot askance, demure but critical, as became an
expert. A sonnet and a bunch of red anemones went to the Palazzo
Vergiolesi that evening; thenceforth it rained sonnets till poor little
Selvaggia ran near losing her five wits. It rained sonnets, I say, until
the Cancellieri brought out the black Guelphs in a swarm. Then it rained
blood, and the Vergiolesi fled one cl