him a tall, active,
grey-haired man with a pointed beard and big moustaches, and eyes which
she now knew had been like her own. She remembered his unbounded energy,
his patriotic and sometimes rather boastful talk, his black cigars, the
vast heap of papers that always seemed to be in hopeless confusion on
his writing table when he was at home, and the numerous
eccentric-looking people who used to come and see him. She had been told
that he was never to be disturbed, and never to be questioned, and that
he was a great man. She had loved him with all her heart when he told
her stories, and at other times she had been distinctly afraid of him.
These stories had been fairy tales to the child, but she had now
discovered that they had been history, or what passes for it.

He had told her about King Amulius of Alba Longa, and of the twin
founders of Rome, and of all the far-off times and doings, and he had
described to her six wonderful maidens who lived in a palace in the
Forum and kept a little fire burning day and night, which he compared to
the great Roman race over whose destiny the mystic ladies were always
watching. It was only quite lately that she had heard any learned men
say in earnest some of the things which he had told her with a smile as
if he were inventing a tale to amuse her child's fancy. But what he had
said had made a deep and abiding impression, and had become a part of
her thought. She sometimes dreamed very vividly that she was again a
little girl, sitting on his knee and listening to his wonderful stories.
In other ways she had not missed him much after his death. Possibly her
mother had not missed him either; for though she spoke of him
occasionally with a sort of awe, it was never with anything like
emotion.

Count Fortiguerra had been kind to the child, or it might be truer to
say that he had spoilt her by encouraging her without much judgment in
her insatiable thirst for knowledge, and in her unnecessary ambition to
excel in everything her fancy led her to attempt. Her mother, with a
good deal of social foolishness and a very pliable character, possessed
nevertheless a fair share of womanly intelligence, and knew by instinct
that a young girl who is very different from other girls, no matter how
clever she may be, rarely makes what people call a good marriage.

There is probably nothing which leads a young woman to think a man a
desirable husband so much as some exceptional gift, or even some
br