of her father's household about her,
wearing her father's crest upon their coats, she went her way to the
Church of the Holy Name.

I do not think that in all the tragic tales of old time there is one
more lamentable than this of lady Beatrice. Monna Iphigenia, so
piteously butchered in Aulis, that the Greek kings might have a
soldier's wind toward Troy, was not more sadly sacrificed, and in the
case of Beatrice, as in that of the Greek damsel, a father was a
consenting party to the crime. The case of Jephthah's daughter was less
pathetic, for there at least the parent was deeply afflicted by the
darts of destiny, whereas old Agamemnon and our Folco were, whatever
their reluctance to dedicate their daughters to an uncomfortable fate,
quite prepared to do so. All of which goes to show that humanity is the
same to-day as it was yesterday, and will, in all likelihood, be the
same to-morrow. There will always be good and bad, kind and unkind, wise
and foolish, always sweet lovers will be singing their songs in the
praise of their sweethearts that are walking in the rose-gardens, and
sour parents will be scowling from the windows. For my own part, I am
always on the side of any lover, young or old, straight or crooked,
gentle or simple, for to my mind, in this muddle of a world, the state
of being in love is at least a definite state, and, whenever and however
gratified, a pleasant state.

I can honestly say, in looking back over the book of my memory, that I
can find no page therein which is not overwritten with the name of some
pretty girl. And though I will not be such a coxcomb as to assert that I
was always favored by any fair upon whom it might please me to cast an
approving eye, yet I must needs admit that I found a great deal of
favor. This I attribute largely to a merry disposition and a ready
desire to please, together with a very genial indifference if, by any
chance, the maid should prove disdainful. For it may be taken as a
general principle that maids are the less tempted to be disdainful if
they guess--and they are shrewd guessers--that their disdain will be met
with a blithe carelessness. Speaking of carelessness and disdain and the
like, reminds me that I have never done what I meant to from the
beginning, and tell you how I fared in my love-affair with Brigitta, the
girl that gave me the cuff and had such strange eyes. But I fear now
that I am too deeply embarked upon the love-affairs of another to have