told, with laughter and music on the water, and the days slipped by like
boats running with the tide. Well, to humor her he took her back the first
autumn to the Brenta. Her father, it appears, had a grand palace there,
with such gardens, bowling-alleys, grottoes and casinos as never were;
gondolas bobbing at the water-gates, a stable full of gilt coaches, a
theatre full of players, and kitchens and offices full of cooks and
lackeys to serve up chocolate all day long to the fine ladies in masks
and furbelows, with their pet dogs and their blackamoors and their
_abates_. Eh! I know it all as if I'd been there, for Nencia, you see,
my grandmother's aunt, travelled with the Duchess, and came back with her
eyes round as platters, and not a word to say for the rest of the year to
any of the lads who'd courted her here in Vicenza.

"What happened there I don't know--my grandmother could never get at
the rights of it, for Nencia was mute as a fish where her lady was
concerned--but when they came back to Vicenza the Duke ordered the villa
set in order; and in the spring he brought the Duchess here and left her.
She looked happy enough, my grandmother said, and seemed no object for
pity. Perhaps, after all, it was better than being shut up in Vicenza,
in the tall painted rooms where priests came and went as softly as cats
prowling for birds, and the Duke was forever closeted in his library,
talking with learned men. The Duke was a scholar; you noticed he was
painted with a book? Well, those that can read 'em make out that they're
full of wonderful things; as a man that's been to a fair across the
mountains will always tell his people at home it was beyond anything
_they'll_ ever see. As for the Duchess, she was all for music,
play-acting and young company. The Duke was a silent man, stepping quietly,
with his eyes down, as though he'd just come from confession; when the
Duchess's lap-dog yapped at his heels he danced like a man in a swarm of
hornets; when the Duchess laughed he winced as if you'd drawn a diamond