she could hope for. Think of it, lady, think of it."

"I will," said Olimpia, who had already done so. There is no doubt that
she and the Mosca understood each other.

They were now riding up the long lime-tree avenue which leads to the
Sea-Gate of Ferrara; soon they entered Ferrara itself, that city of warm
red brick, of broad eaves, of laughter, and, as it were, a fairy-tale,
bowered in rustling green. The streets ran wide between garden walls and
the massy fronts of great square houses; they were full of a traffic
which seemed that of a prosperous people bent upon pleasure. Happy
ladies rode by with hawks or leashed dogs, or crowns of flowers.
Cavaliers, in white and yellow, ribboned, slashed, curled, and
feathered, went in and out of the throng to keep an assignation, or to
break one. The priests joked with the women, the very urchins coaxed for
kisses. Every street corner had its lovers' tryst, never a garden walk
without its loitering pair, never a lady came out of a church door but
there stood a devout adorer to beg a touch of holy water from her
finger-tip.

"How happy this people is," cried Bellaroba, flushed and sparkling, to
her little lord. "Everybody loves everybody else."

"My dear, we have nothing to do with their loves; we are going to be
married," replied Angioletto, looking straight before him.

"Yes, Angioletto," said she, as meek as a mouse.

Olimpia, who was not thinking of marriage, was highly entertained.
There was a press of grooms and led horses, richly caparisoned, outside
the open doors of a new and very spacious palace. Round about them
crowded people of a meaner sort, and beggars not a few; but a lane was
kept to the gateway by soldiers in red and yellow, who bore upon their
breasts a quartered coat of eagles and lilies.

"Hist!" said Mosca, pulling up his horse. "This is the fine new palace
of the Duke, which he calls his Schifanoia. He is evidently expected in
from his hawking. The greatest falconer you ever knew, my life! I do
assure you."

"That may very well be," said Olimpia, "for I have never known one at
all."

"You shall know this one before I die, and another who is my most noble
master," cried Mosca, "or I am your kennel-dog for nothing."

"Let us wait a little and see this hawking Duke of yours," Olimpia said,
with a gentle pressure of her arms about the Captain's middle.

"Blood of blood," sighed the Mosca, "I am as wax in the candle of you,
my soul."

Olimpia pul