state-apartments, and to remain here alone for many hours. The key is
always about her person, attached to her girdle. No other foot but her
own is ever permitted to tread these floors.

She sits in the half-light, lost in thought as in a dream. Her head is
raised, her arms are extended over the sides of the antique chair; her
long, white hands hang down listlessly. Her eyes wander vaguely along
the floor; gradually they raise themselves to the portrait of her
great ancestor opposite. How well she knows every line and feature of
that stern but heroic countenance, every dark curl upon that classic
head, wreathed with ivy-leaves; that full, expressive eye,
aquiline nose, open nostril, and chiseled lip; every fold in that
ermine-bordered mantle--a present from the emperor, after the victory
of Altopasso, and the triumph of the Ghibellines! Looking into the
calmness of that impressive face, in the mystery of the darkened
presence-chamber, she can forget that the greatness of her house is
fallen, the broad lands sold or mortgaged, the treasures granted
by the state lavished, one even of the ancestral palaces sold; nay,
worse, not only sold, but desecrated by commerce in the person of
Count Nobili.

Seated there, on the seigneurial chair, under the regal canopy, she
can forget all this. For a few short hours she can live again in the
splendor of the past--the past, when a Guinigi was the equal of kings,
his word more absolute than law, his frown more terrible than death!

Before the marchesa is a square table of dark marble, on which in old
time was laid the sword of state (a special insignia of office),
borne before the Lord of Lucca in public processions, embassies, and
tournaments. This table is now covered with small piled-up heaps of