the vehement gestures and varying
physiognomy of southern vivacity. There was a general stir and sensation
as Adrian broke upon this miscellaneous company. The bandit captains
nodded their heads mechanically; the pages bowed, and admired the
fashion of his plume and hose; the clients, and petitioners, and
parasites, crowded round him, each with a separate request for interest
with his potent kinsman. Great need had Adrian of his wonted urbanity
and address, in extricating himself from their grasp; and painfully
did he win, at last, the low and narrow door, at which stood a tall
servitor, who admitted or rejected the applicants, according to his
interest or caprice.

"Is the Baron alone?" asked Adrian.

"Why, no, my Lord: a foreign signor is with him--but to you he is of
course visible."

"Well, you may admit me. I would inquire of his health."

The servitor opened the door--through whose aperture peered many a
jealous and wistful eye--and consigned Adrian to the guidance of a page,
who, older and of greater esteem than the loiterers in the ante-room,
was the especial henchman of the Lord of the Castle. Passing another,
but empty chamber, vast and dreary, Adrian found himself in a small
cabinet, and in the presence of his kinsman.

Before a table, bearing the implements of writing, sate the old Colonna:
a robe of rich furs and velvet hung loose upon his tall and stately
frame; from a round skull-cap, of comforting warmth and crimson hue, a
few grey locks descended, and mixed with a long and reverent beard. The
countenance of the aged noble, who had long passed his eightieth year,
still retained the traces of a comeliness for which in earlier manhood
he was remarkable. His eyes, if deep-sunken, were still keen and lively,
and sparkled with all the fire of youth; his mouth curved upward in a
pleasant, though half-satiric, smile; and his appearance on the whole
was prepossessing and commanding, indicating rather the high blood, the
shrewd wit, and the gallant valour of the patrician, than his craft,
hypocrisy, and habitual but disdainful spirit of oppression.

Stephen Colonna, without being absolutely a hero, was indeed far braver
than most of the Romans, though he held fast to the Italian maxim--never
to fight an enemy while it is possible to cheat him. Two faults,
however, marred the effect of his sagacity: a supreme insolence of
disposition, and a profound belief in the lights of his experience. He
was incapable