ellously this lady's visit to Rome fell in with my schemes.

As we made our entry into that most beautiful room of all the world, the
_sala de gala_ of the Colonna palace, my sister clutched my arm tightly.
A glimpse of the glories of heaven could not in sooth have been more
transporting to the rapt gaze of an anchorite, for Giulia was
essentially of this world and a superb mundane life was her highest
ambition.

She had profited by her tutelage at the court of the Marchesa, the most
cultured in the north of Italy, but this dazzling room surpassed any in
the Mantuan palace as far as her own beauty outshone that of her
protectress. So as her foolish little heart cried out "Oh! that I might
reign here as Queen," she looked up into the admiring eyes of
Vespasian Colonna and heard the echo of her unuttered cry--"Reign here
as Queen."

[Illustration: Garden of the Colonna Palace, Rome

With permission of Mr. Charles A. Platt]

For Vespasian was a widower, and the snows of age had not cooled the
volcanic fires of his heart. He offered his arm to the Marchesa, and
together they made the rounds of the regal apartments. But ever as we
paused before a portrait and he explained that this was some fair
ancestress his backward glance at Giulia told that in his estimation she
surpassed them all.

The interior of the palace inspected we passed over a bridge, which
spanned a side street, to the terraced garden crowned by the ruins of
the old Roman Temple of the Sun. Here were also statues and fountains,
square-cut hedges, and sun-warmed, marble seats, and the air was heavy
with the perfume of roses and jasmine. But the glory of the garden, as
Colonna told us, was its outlook over Rome. This we could not now fully
appreciate for dusk was falling and the city was in a purple haze, which
deepened as we looked. Soon coloured lights glimmered forth in the dark
_allees_, and suddenly from the summit of the ruin there rose slowly a
fire balloon and twinkling far away into the blue seemed to seek its
companion stars.

"It is the conceit of my daughter Isabella," Vespasian explained, "a
fete of fire-works in honour of your coming."

I delayed to hear no more, but drawn by some mysterious attraction
sought and found the Signorina Colonna. The flame signals flashed in her
cheeks as her eyes met mine, for my glance seemed to her doubtless
overbold, though it held naught of disrespect God wot.

And then she explained the mechanism of her