"Your excellency is of course above danger," said Sebastian, with a little cough, "but, for common minds, there is the danger of not distinguishing which is the right. For myself, being but a moderate logician, and still slighter theologian, I prefer taking my religion as I have been taught it, to meddling with edged tools. The Church is irrefutable: the Church has foundations that will never be shaken. And I am content to abide by its decisions.—A little more to the right."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE DUCHESS AND THE PAINTER.
After the steed is stolen, we shut the stable-door; and the Duchess, who now felt very cowardly after dark, set a regular watch on the battlements, whose orders were that he should wind his horn every hour, as he paced his rounds, that she might be certified he was on the alert. The prolonged, wailing note of this horn, piercing the solemn stillness of night, had something infinitely melancholy in it, and often woke her with a start; but then she had the satisfaction of thinking all was safe, and soon yielded herself again to soft repose. Her maids, of whom she had as many as the Duchess in Don Quixote, were much more timorous than she was, and yielded a good deal to their fears, thinking it rather pretty and interesting to start and shriek on the smallest alarm, till they were scolded out of it by the Mother of the maids. This important functionary, whose name, like that of Giulia's nurse, was Caterina, but who bore the dignified prefix of Donna, was of Spanish birth, starched and stiff as Leslie's duenna. In the feudal times, when the sons of knights and nobles took service in the household of some brother noble or knight, and performed the various duties of page and squire, their sisters in like manner attended on the said noble's lady, somewhat in the capacity of maids of honour, under the strict surveillance of the Mother of the maids, who initiated them into all feminine crafts and handiworks, as well as into the decorums and duties of life. That the Duchess's household comprised many of these girls, we know from her will, leaving them marriage portions, generally with the addition of a bed and bedding. Doubtless there was some Altesidora among them, accustomed to wear the old Duenna's heart out with her mischief and fun; but, on the whole, Donna Caterina's rule was popular. Obedience, the grand principle of peace and order, once enforced, she exercised no vexatious petty tyrannies.
On the first rumour of Barbarossa's invasion, Donna Caterina had swept off all these young people into the cellar, and there locked them and herself in, while Caterina, the nurse, devoted herself to securing the jewels and plate, which she did with complete success.
Sebastian del Piombo made many studies of the Duchess before he could please himself; and the irresolution with which captious cavillers have chosen to charge him was indicated in the deliberation with which he poised and valued the merits of each before his final decision was made. But deliberation is a very different thing from vacillation; and even irresolution is as often an evidence of a great mind before the ultimate choice, as it is of a little one after it. Plenty of illustrations will occur to you, without any impertinent suggestions.
After sketching her, then, as a nymph, an angel, a goddess, he chose the simplest of his studies: one that represented her as
"A creature not too bright or good