"He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician,
who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my
grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine. He
had a good word for everybody, too, and was always dressed in the French
fashion, and smelt as sweet as a bean-field; and every soul about the place
welcomed the sight of him.

"Well, the Duchess, it seemed, welcomed it too; youth will have youth,
and laughter turns to laughter; and the two matched each other like the
candlesticks on an altar. The Duchess--you've seen her portrait--but to
hear my grandmother, sir, it no more approached her than a weed comes up to
a rose. The Cavaliere, indeed, as became a poet, paragoned her in his song
to all the pagan goddesses of antiquity; and doubtless these were finer
to look at than mere women; but so, it seemed, was she; for, to believe
my grandmother, she made other women look no more than the big French
fashion-doll that used to be shown on Ascension days in the Piazza. She
was one, at any rate, that needed no outlandish finery to beautify her;
whatever dress she wore became her as feathers fit the bird; and her hair
didn't get its color by bleaching on the housetop. It glittered of itself
like the threads in an Easter chasuble, and her skin was whiter than fine
wheaten bread and her mouth as sweet as a ripe fig....

"Well, sir, you could no more keep them apart than the bees and the
lavender. They were always together, singing, bowling, playing cup and
ball, walking in the gardens, visiting the aviaries and petting her grace's
trick-dogs and monkeys. The Duchess was as gay as a foal, always playing
pranks and laughing, tricking out her animals like comedians, disguising
herself as a peasant or a nun (you should have seen her one day pass
herself off to the chaplain as a mendicant sister), or teaching the lads
and girls of the vineyards to dance and sing madrigals together. The