etto had been assured of the nesting of his mate, he dressed
himself point-device and went to Court to deliver his credentials. He
found the lady upon whom so much depended, at the Schifanoia. Madama
Lionella d'Este, wife of the Count Guarino Guarini, was a
fresh-coloured, lusty young woman of three and twenty, not at all in
love with her husband, but very much in love with love. The Captain of
Lances had said truly when he shrugged her off as no beauty.
Large-limbed she was, the shape of a boy, with a long mouth and small
eyes, full-lipped, big in foot and hand. Yet she was a very merry soul,
frank if not free in her speech and gesture, and though liable to bursts
of angry temper, for the most part as innocent of malice as a tiger cub.
If you remember her an Este, you will forgive her much, excuse her
everything, and rather like her.

Angioletto, who found her sitting on the grass among her ladies,
advanced with great ceremony and many bows. Madama did not get up; no
one did; so Angioletto had to step gingerly into a ring of roguish
women to deliver his letter. Lionella scampered through it, reddening
with pleasure; she beckoned him with smiles to sit beside her.

"We are making rose-garlands to adorn our pretty heads," she said,
laughing. "Come and sit by me, Angioletto, and sing to us. Who knows but
what, if you are good, we shall not crown you with one of them?"

It was a great merit of Angioletto's that he always took things and men
(especially women) as he found them. Such as they were he could be for
the time. He was by no means waxen; elastic rather. Down he plumped,
accordingly, cross-legged by his new mistress, and warbled a canzone to
the viola which enchanted the lady.

"More, more, more!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Oh, boy, I could
have you a prince for less than that! What a throstle-pipe you have!"

It was, as he afterwards found out, of her habit to be for ever at
extremes; but just now, not knowing how to take her, he sang on all the
better for her praise; and he had her next wriggling in an ecstasy over
a trifle he made up on the spur of the moment--a snatch wherein roses
and a girl's face (Bellaroba's, be sure) took turns to be dominant. At
the end of this pretty piece the Countess Lionella fairly took his own
face between her hands, crumpled his lips into a bud and kissed them
full. Angioletto coloured, though no one else did. It was evidently
quite harmless, and afterwards he was ashamed of