be said for these? I think not. They rest in honourable graves, their
doings live in honoured remembrance--would that there had been such
another generation to succeed them.

And having said thus much, let us return to the individuals who have
played a part in the history of the Saracinesca. They have grown older,
some gracefully, some under protest, some most unbecomingly.

In the end of the year 1887 old Leone Saracinesca is still alive, being
eighty-two years of age. His massive head has sunk a little between his
slightly rounded shoulders, and his white beard is no longer cut short
and square, but flows majestically down upon his broad breast. His step
is slow, but firm still, and when he looks up suddenly from under his
wrinkled lids, the fire is not even yet all gone from his eyes. He is
still contradictory by nature, but he has mellowed like rare wine in the
long years of prosperity and peace. When the change came in Rome he was
in the mountains at Saracinesca, with his daughter-in-law, Corona and
her children. His son Giovanni, generally known as Prince of Sant'
Ilario, was among the volunteers at the last and sat for half a day upon
his horse in the Pincio, listening to the bullets that sang over his
head while his men fired stray shots from the parapets of the public
garden into the road below. Giovanni is fifty-two years old, but though
his hair is grey at the temples and his figure a trifle sturdier and
broader than of old, he is little changed. His son, Orsino, who will
soon be of age, overtops him by a head and shoulders, a dark youth,
slender still, but strong and active, the chief person in this portion
of my chronicle. Orsino has three brothers of ranging ages, of whom the
youngest is scarcely twelve years old. Not one girl child has been given
to Giovanni and Corona and they almost wish that one of the sturdy
little lads had been a daughter. But old Saracinesca laughs and shakes