nd witty. Although
she had overstepped the thirties by a year, she had lost nothing of her
youth, vivacity and great personal charm, for she possessed the secret
of Madame de Pompadour's fascination, that '_beaute sans traits_' which
lights up with unexpected graces. Moreover, she possessed that rare gift
commonly called tact. A fine feminine sense of the fitness of things was
an infallible guide to her. In her relations with a host of
acquaintances of either sex she always succeeded in steering her course
discreetly; she never committed an error of taste, never weighed heavily
on the lives of others, never arrived at an inopportune moment nor
became importunate, no deed or word of hers but was entirely to the
point. Her treatment of Andrea during the somewhat trying period of his
convalescence was beyond all praise. She did her utmost to avoid
disturbing or annoying him, and, what is more, managed that no one else
should; she left him complete liberty, pretended not to notice his whims
and melancholies; never worried him with indiscreet questions; made her
company sit as lightly as possible on him at obligatory moments, and
even went so far as to refrain from her usual witty remarks in his
presence to save him the trouble of forcing a smile.

Andrea recognised her delicacy and was profoundly grateful.

Returning from the garden with unwonted lightness of heart on that
September morning after writing his sonnets on the Hermes, he
encountered Donna Francesca on the steps, and, kissing her hand, he
exclaimed in laughing tones:

'Cousin Francesca, I have found the Truth and the Way!

'Alleluja!' she returned, lifting up her fair rounded arms,--'Alleluja!'

And she continued on her way down to the garden while Andrea went on to
his room with heart refreshed.

A little while afterwards there came a gentle knock at the door and
Francesca's voice asking--'May I come in?'

She entered with the lap of her dress and both arms full of great
clusters of dewy roses, white, yellow, crimson, russet brown. Some were
wide and transparent like those of the Villa Pamfili, all fresh and
glistening, others were densely petalled, and with that intensity of
colouring which recalls the boasted magnificence of the dyes of Tyre and
Sidon; others again were like little heaps of odorous snow, and gave one
a strange desire to bite into them and eat them. The infinite gradations
of red, from violent crimson to the faded pink of over-ripe
str