blow had ever befallen the count: it was as good as a public
proclamation that he possessed small influence. To have bent the knee
was not afflicting to this nobleman's conscience: but it was an anguish
to think of having bent the knee for nothing.

Giacomo Piaveni was a noble Italian of the young blood, son of a General
loved by Eugene. In him the loss of Italy was deplorable. He perished by
treachery at the age of twenty-three years. So splendid was this youth
in appearance, of so sweet a manner with women, and altogether so-gentle
and gallant, that it was a widowhood for women to have known him: and
at his death the hearts of two women who had loved him in rivalry became
bound by a sacred tie of friendship. He, though not of distinguished
birth, had the choice of an almost royal alliance in the first blush
of his manhood. He refused his chance, pleading in excuse to Count
Serabiglione, that he was in love with that nobleman's daughter, Laura;
which it flattered the count to hear, but he had ever after a contempt
for the young man's discretion, and was observed to shrug, with the
smooth sorrowfulness of one who has been a prophet, on the day when
Giacomo was shot. The larger estates of the Piaveni family, then in
Giacomo's hands, were in a famous cheese-making district, producing a
delicious cheese:--'white as lambkins!' the count would ejaculate most
dolefully; and in a rapture of admiration, 'You would say, a marble
quarry when you cut into it.' The theme was afflicting, for all the
estates of Giacomo were for the time forfeit, and the pleasant agitation
produced among his senses by the mention of the cheese reminded him at
the same instant that he had to support a widow with two children. The
Signora Piaveni lived in Milan, and the count her father visited her
twice during the summer months, and wrote to her from his fitful Winter
residences in various capital cities, to report progress in the settled
scheme for the recovery of Giacomo's property, as well for his widow
as for the heirs of his body. 'It is a duty,' Count Serabiglione said
emphatically. 'My daughter can entertain no proposal until her children
are duly established; or would she, who is young and lovely and archly
capricious, continue to decline the very best offers of the Milanese
nobility, and live on one flat in an old quarter of the city, instead of
in a bright and handsome street, musical with equipages, and full of the
shows of life?'

In conju