elf exceedingly ill, and we are here to receive his excuses."

"I am afraid, messieurs," said the Frenchman, bowing, "that it will
exhaust your patience if you continue to wait for them. Might it not
be better to come and accept what he is quite prepared to offer
you,--satisfaction?"

"Be it so," said Lord Selby: "he 'll see his mistake some time or other,
and perhaps regret it. Where shall it be?--and when?"

"At the Fossombroni Villa, about two miles from this. To-morrow morning,
at eight, if that suit you."

"Quite well. I have no other appointment. Pistols, of course?"

"You have the choice, otherwise my friend would have preferred the
sword."

"Take him at his word, Selby," whispered Baynton; "you are equal to any
of them with the rapier."

"If your friend desire the sword, I have no objection,--I mean the
rapier."

"The rapier be it," said the Frenchman; and with a polite assurance
of the infinite honor he felt in forming their acquaintance, and the
gratifying certainty that they were sure to possess of his highest
consideration, he bowed, backed, and withdrew.

"Well-mannered fellow, the Frenchman," said Baynton, as the door closed;
and the other nodded assent, and rang the bell for dinner.

CHAPTER XX. THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONI

The grounds of the Villa Fossombroni were, at the time we speak of,
the Chalk Farm, or the Fifteen Acres of Tuscany. The villa itself, long
since deserted by the illustrious family whose name it bore, had fallen
into the hands of an old Pied-montese noble, ruined by a long life of
excess and dissipation. He had served with gallantry in the imperial
army of France, but was dismissed the service for a play transaction
in which his conduct was deeply disgraceful; and the Colonel Count
Tasseroni, of the 8th Hussars of the Guards, was declared unworthy to
wear the uniform of a Frenchman.

For a number of years he had lived so estranged from the world that
many believed he had died; but at last it was known that he had gone
to reside in a half-ruined villa near Florence, which soon became the
resort of a certain class of gamblers whose habits would have speedily
attracted notice if practised within the city. The quarrels and
altercations, so inseparable from high play, were usually settled on the
spot in which they occurred, until at last the villa became famous for
these meetings, and the name of Fossombroni, in a discussion, was the
watchword for a duel.

It was of a splendi