s, and falcons of every breed,
and horses, and hounds,--in short, there is no saying what she did not
have. One day she took it into her head to add the little Isella to the
number of her acquisitions. With the easy grace of aristocracy, she
reached out her jewelled hand and took Elsie's one flower to add to her
conservatory,--and Elsie was only too proud to have it so.

Her daughter was kept constantly about the person of the Duchess, and
instructed in all the wisdom which would have been allowed her, had she
been the Duchess's own daughter, which, to speak the truth, was in
those days nothing very profound,--consisting of a little singing and
instrumentation, a little embroidery and dancing, with the power of
writing her own name and of reading a love-letter.

All the world knows that the very idea of a pet is something to be
spoiled for the amusement of the pet-owner; and Isella was spoiled in
the most particular and circumstantial manner. She had suits of apparel
for every day in the year, and jewels without end,--for the Duchess was
never weary of trying the effect of her beauty in this and that costume;
so that she sported through the great grand halls and down the long
aisles of the garden much like a bright-winged hummingbird, or a
damsel-fly all green and gold. She was a genuine child of Italy,--full
of feeling, spirit, and genius,--alive in every nerve to the
finger-tips; and under the tropical sunshine of her mistress's favor she
grew as an Italian rose-bush does, throwing its branches freakishly over
everything in a wild labyrinth of perfume, brightness, and thorns.

For a while her life was a triumph, and her mother triumphed with her at
an humble distance. The Duchess had no daughter, and was devoted to her
with the blind fatuity with which ladies of rank at times will invest
themselves in a caprice. She arrogated to herself all the praises of her
beauty and wit, allowed her to flirt and make conquests to her heart's
content, and engaged to marry her to some handsome young officer of her
train, when she had done being amused with her.

Now we must not wonder that a young head of fifteen should have been
turned by this giddy elevation, nor that an old head of fifty should
have thought all things were possible in the fortune of such a favorite.
Nor must we wonder that the young coquette, rich in the laurels of a
hundred conquests, should have turned her bright eyes on the son and
heir, when he came home f