e to look on at the famous contest.

It was raining hard; the light in the low-roofed damp rooms was dull and
gray. Along the walls were ranged various pieces of carved furniture,
several large diptychs and triptychs of the Tuscan school of the
fourteenth century; four pieces of Flemish tapestry representing the
Story of Narcissus hung from ceiling to floor; Metaurensian majolicas
occupied two long shelves; stuffs--for the most part ecclesiastical--lay
spread out on chairs or heaped up on tables; antiquities of the rarest
kind--ivories, enamels, crystals, engraved gems, medals, coins,
breviaries, illuminated manuscripts, silver of delicate workmanship were
massed together in high cabinets behind the auctioneer's table. A
peculiar musty odour, arising from the clamminess of the atmosphere and
this collection of ancient things, pervaded the air.

When Andrea Sperelli entered the room with the Princess di Ferentino, he
looked about him rapidly with a secret tremor--Is _she_ here? he said to
himself.

She was there, seated at the table between the Cavaliere Davila and Don
Filippo del Monte. Before her on the table lay her gloves and her muff,
to which a little bunch of violets was fastened. She held in her hand a
little bas-relief in silver, attributed to Caradosso Foppa, which she
was examining with great attention. Each article passed from hand to
hand along the table while the auctioneer proclaimed its merits in a
loud voice, those standing behind the line of chairs leaning over to
look.

The sale began.

'Make your bids, gentlemen! make your bids!' cried the auctioneer from
time to time.

Some amateur encouraged by this cry bid a higher sum with his eye on his
competitors. The auctioneer raised his hammer.

'Going--Going--Gone!'

He rapped the table. The article fell to the last bidder. A murmur went
round the assemblage, then the bidding recommenced. The Cavaliere
Davila, a Neapolitan gentleman of gigantic stature and almost femininely
gentle manners, a noted collector and connoisseur of majolica, gave his
opinion on each article of importance. Three lots in this sale of the
Cardinal's effects were really of 'superior' quality: the Story of
Narcissus, the rock-crystal goblet, and an embossed silver helmet by
Antonio del Pollajuolo presented by the City of Florence to the Count of
Urbino in 1472 for services rendered during the taking of Volterra.

'Here is the Princess,' said Filippo del Monte to the Duchess