last Lord Belfont. The Belfonts of Lancashire (now, save for
your Duchessa, extinct) were the most bigoted sort of Roman
Catholics, and always educated their daughters in foreign
convents, and as often as not married them to foreigners. The
Belfont men, besides, were ever and anon marrying foreign
wives; so there will be a goodish deal of un-English blood in
your Duchessa's own ci-devant English veins.

"She was born, as I learn from an indiscretion of my Peerage,
in 1870, and is, therefore, as near to thirty (the dangerous
age!) as to the six-and-twenty your droll old Marietta gives
her. Her Christian names are Beatrice Antonia Teresa Mary
--faites en votre choix. She was married at nineteen to
Baldassarre Agosto, Principe Udeschini, Duca di Santangiolo,
Marchese di Castellofranco, Count of the Holy Roman Empire,
Knight of the Holy Ghost and of St. Gregory, (does it take your
breath away?), who, according to Frontin, died in '93; and as
there were no children, his brother Felipe Lorenzo succeeded to
the titles. A younger brother still is Bishop of Sardagna.
Cardinal Udeschini is the uncle.

"That, dear child, empties my sack of information. But perhaps
I have a bigger sack, full of good advice, which I have not yet
opened. And perhaps, on the whole, I will not open it at all.
Only, remember that in yonder sentimental Italian lake country,
in this summer weather, a solitary young man's fancy might be
much inclined to turn to thoughts of--folly; and keep an eye on
my friend Peter Marchdale."

Our solitary young man brooded over Mrs. Winchfield's letter