n, and he
must have been a small boy. Therefore what he felt was absurd.

"Cecilia," said the Countess, speaking to the girl, "this is Signor
Lamberto Lamberti." "My daughter," she explained, as he bowed, "Cecilia
Palladio."

"Most charming!" cried the Princess, "the son and the daughter of two
old friends."

"Touching," echoed Monsieur Leroy. "Such a picture! There is true
sentiment in it."

Lamberti did not hear, but Cecilia Palladio did, and a straight shadow,
fine as a hair line, appeared for an instant, perpendicular between her
brows, while she looked directly at the man before her. A moment later
Lamberti was seated between her and her mother, and Monsieur Leroy had
resumed the position he had left to welcome the newcomer, sitting on a
very low cushioned stool almost at the Princess's feet.

In formal circumstances, a man who has been long in the army or navy can
usually trust himself not to show astonishment or emotion, and after the
first slight start of surprise, which only Monsieur Leroy had seen,
Lamberti had behaved as if nothing out of the common way had happened to
him. But he had felt as if he were in a dream, while healthily sure that
he was awake; and now that he was more at ease, he began to examine the
cause of his inward disturbance.

It was not only out of the question to suppose that he had ever before
now met Cecilia Palladio, but he was quite certain that he had never
seen any one who was at all like her.

If extinct types of men could be revived now and then, of those which
the world once thought admirable and tried to copy, it would be
interesting to see how many persons of taste would acknowledge any
beauty in them. Cecilia Palladio had been eighteen years old early in
the winter, and in the usual course of things would have made her
appearance in society during the carnival season. The garden party for
which her mother had now sent out invitations was to take the place of
the dance which should have been given in January. Afterwards, when it
was over, and everybody had seen her, some people said that she was
perfectly beautiful, others declared that she was a freak of nature and
would soon be hideous, but, meanwhile, was an interesting study; one
young gentleman, addicted to art, said that her face belonged to the
type seen in the Elgin marbles; a Sicilian lady said that her head was
even more archaic than that, and resembled a fragment from the temples
of Selinunte, preserved in th