will of his own, admirably seconded by an enormous lung power. Hot
that he cried, when he wanted anything. His baby eyes had not yet
been seen to shed tears. He merely shouted, loud and long, and
thumped the sides of his cradle with his little clenched fists, or
struck out straight at anybody who chanced to be within reach.
Corona rejoiced in the child, and used to say that he was like his
grandfather, his father and his mother all put together. The old
prince thought that if this were true the boy would do very well;
Corona was the most beautiful dark woman of her time; he himself
was a sturdy, tough old man, though his hair and beard were white
as snow, and Giovanni was his father's ideal of what a man of his
race should be. The arrival of the baby Orsino had been an
additional argument in favour of living together, for the child's
grandfather could not have been separated from him even by the
quarter of a mile which lay between the two palaces.

And so it came to pass that they all dwelt under the same roof,
and were sitting together at breakfast on the morning of the 24th
of September, when the old prince told them of the accident which
had happened to Gouache.

"How did you hear the news?" asked Giovanni.

"Montevarchi told me this morning. He was very much disturbed at
the idea of having an interesting young man in his house, with
Plavia and Faustina at home." Old Saracinesca smiled grimly.

"Why should that trouble him?" inquired Corona.

"He has the ancient ideas," replied her father-in-law.