in Donna Serafina's reception-room. Monsignor Nani had merely put in an
appearance that night, and Cardinal Sarno had just gone off.

Even Donna Serafina, in her usual seat by the fireplace, seemed to have
withdrawn from the others, absorbed as she was in contemplation of the
chair which the absent Morano still stubbornly left unoccupied. Chatting
and laughing in front of the sofa on which sat Benedetta and Celia were
Dario, Pierre, and Narcisse Habert, the last of whom had begun to twit
the young Prince, having met him, so he asserted, a few days previously,
in the company of a very pretty girl.

"Oh! don't deny it, my dear fellow," continued Narcisse, "for she was
really superb. She was walking beside you, and you turned into a lane
together--the Borgo Angelico, I think."

Dario listened smiling, quite at his ease and incapable of denying his
passionate predilection for beauty. "No doubt, no doubt; it was I, I
don't deny it," he responded. "Only the inferences you draw are not
correct." And turning towards Benedetta, who, without a thought of
jealous anxiety, wore as gay a look as himself, as though delighted that
he should have enjoyed that passing pleasure of the eyes, he went on: "It
was the girl, you know, whom I found in tears six weeks ago. Yes, that
bead-worker who was sobbing because the workshop was shut up, and who
rushed along, all blushing, to conduct me to her parents when I offered
her a bit of silver. Pierina her name is, as you, perhaps, remember."

"Oh! yes, Pierina."

"Well, since then I've met her in the street on four or five occasions.
And, to tell the truth, she is so very beautiful that I've stopped and