, was filled now with wonder, now with
mockery; yet never interfered.

"What is your name, sir knight?" she asked, after a pause.

His eyes looked troubled, and as they shot beyond her to the fool, they
caught on Peppe's face a grin of sly amusement.

"My name," he said at last, "is Francesco." And then, to prevent that
she should further question him--"But tell me, Madonna," he inquired,
"how comes a lady of your station here, alone with that poor fraction of
a man?" And he indicated the grinning Peppe.

"My people are yonder in the woods, where we have halted for a little
space. I am on my way to my uncle's court, from the Convent of Santa
Sofia, and for my escort I have Messer Romeo Gonzaga and twenty spears.
So that, you see, I am well protected, without counting Ser Peppe here
and the saintly Fra Domenico, my confessor."

There was a pause, ended at length by Francesco.

"You will be the younger niece of his Highness of Urbino?" said he.

"Not so, Messer Francesco," she answered readily. "I am the elder."

At that his brows grew of a sudden dark.

"Can you be she whom they would wed to Gian Maria?" he exclaimed, at
which the fool pricked up his ears, whilst she looked at the Count with
a gaze that plainly showed how far she was from understanding him.

"You said?" she asked.

"Why, nothing," he answered, with a sigh, and in that moment a man's
voice came ringing through the wood.

"Madonna! Madonna Valentina!"

Francesco and the lady turned their eyes in the direction whence the
voice proceeded, and they beheld a superbly dazzling figure entering the
glade. In beauty of person and richness of apparel he was well worthy of
the company of Valentina. His doublet was of grey velvet, set off with
scales of beaten gold, and revealing a gold-embroidered vest beneath;
his bonnet matched his doublet, and was decked by a feather that
sparkled with costly gems; his gold-hilted sword was sheathed in a
scabbard also of grey velvet set with jewels. His face was comely as a
damsel's, his eyes blue and his hair golden.

"Behold," announced Peppino gravely, "Italy's latest translation of the
Golden Ass of Apuleius."

Upon seeing the noble niece of Guidobaldo kneeling there with
Francesco's head still pillowed in her lap, the new-comer cast up his
arms in a gesture of dismay.

"Saints in Heaven!" he exclaimed, hurrying towards them. "What
occupation have you found? Who is this ugly fellow?"

"Ugly?" was all she