se e le parole._'

Two days afterwards he repaid his cousin by presenting her with a sonnet
curiously fashioned on an antique model and inscribed on vellum with
illuminated ornaments in the style of those that enliven the missals of
Attavante and of Liberale of Verona.

'Ferrara, for its d'Estes glorious,
Where Cossa strove in triumphs to recall
Cosimo Tura's triumphs on the wall,
Saw never feast more fair and plenteous.

Monna Francesca plucked and bore to us
Such store of roses, and so shed on all,
That heaven had lacked for such a coronal
The little angels it engarlands thus.

She spoke, and shed the roses in such showers,
And such a loveliness was seen in her,
_This_ said I, _is some Grace the sun discloses._

I trembled at the sweetness of the flowers.
A verse of Petrarch mounted in the air:
_She scatters words and scatters with them roses_.

CHAPTER III

On the following Wednesday, the 15th of September, the new guest
arrived.

The Marchesa, accompanied by Andrea and her eldest son, Fernanindo,
drove over to Rovigliano, the nearest station, to meet her. As they
drove along the road shadowed by lofty poplars, the Marchesa spoke to
Andrea of her friend with much affection.

'I think you will like her,' she remarked in conclusion.

Then she began to laugh as if at some sudden thought.

'Why do you laugh?' asked Andrea.

'I am making a comparison.'

'What comparison?'

'Guess.'

'I can't.'

'Well, I was thinking of another introduction I gave you about two years
ago, which I accompanied by a delightful prophecy--you remember?'

'Ah--ha--'

'And I laughed because this time again there is an unknown lady in
question and this time too I may play the part of--an involuntary
providence.'

'Oh--oh!'

'But this case is very different, or rather the difference lies in the
heroine of the possible drama.'

'You mean--'

'That Maria Ferres is a _turris eburnea_.'

'And I am now a _vas spirituale_.'

'Ah yes, I had forgotten that you had, at last, found the Truth and the
Way--"'The glad soul laughs because its loves have fled--'"

'What--you are quoting my verses?'

'I know them by heart.'

'How sweet of you!'

'However, I confess, my dear cousin, that your "fair white woman"
holding the Host in her pure hands seems to me a trifle suspicious. She
has, to my mind, too much of the air of a hollow shape, a robe without a
body