ons from the garden of
the Colonna palace. It was an unusual and a dangerous pastime for a
young girl, but the sudden flashing from the gloom of those flickering
lights, that illumined for an instant the beautiful face which the
darkness as quickly obliterated, gave an additional zest to my enjoyment
of the vision.

I strode to her side and affected great interest in her occupation. The
balloons were ingeniously constructed to represent birds with spread
wings, and it was the alchemist of the family who dwelt at Palliano who
had invented them. "It is his conceit," she explained, "that rising from
the flames they resemble the phoenix, a bird peerless in beauty and
song, which appears upon earth but twice in a thousand years."

"Then that shall be my name for you," I said, for we were alone for the
instant; "but will you as tranquilly soar away from me, leaving the
world the darker for your passing?"

Though she gave me not at that time the answer I coveted, I liked none
the less the modesty which made her winning difficult. There were also
other matters of importance to the world at large, which I must now
digress to explain, that at first hindered, but in the end abetted that
winning.

It was in the spring of the eventful year of 1525 that my cousin,
Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, requested me to escort his mother,
the worshipful Marchesa Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, upon her journey to
Rome. This demand was the more reasonable in that the Marchesa was a
most loving and munificent patroness of my sister Giulia, for whose
orphaned condition the great lady had shown the most tender sympathy,
removing her from our lonely ancestral castle, and bringing the girl up
in her own brilliant court. Giulia was now at the height of the
attractiveness which was soon to be so extravagantly sung, many still
maintaining her the most beautiful woman of our time.

From that estimate her brother must be allowed to differ. A superbly
regal creature she certainly was, but too grandly made for my ideals.
Let the question rest, for her heart was ever as great as her body, and
I deny her supremacy to but one other. At this time I loved her better
than any woman in the world, and as she was to accompany the Marchesa, I
was the more willing to lend my protection to the cortege.

It was an inauspicious season for ladies to choose for a pleasure jaunt,
for their Majesties the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. had entered
upon their struggl