She could only stare, the bold jade, at a loss for an answer. The soft umber eyes of the youth looked into hers. They were round and velvety as a rabbit's, with high, clean-pencilled brows over. His nose was short and pretty broad at the bridge, and his mouth was a little mouth, pouting as a child's, something combative, and with lips like tinted wax. Like a girl's his jaw was round and beardless, and his hair a golden fleece, cut square at the neck, and its ends brittle as if they had been singed in fire. His doublet and hose were of palest pink; his bonnet, shoes, and mantlet of cypress-green velvet. Rose-coloured ribbons, knotted into silver buckles, adorned his feet; and over his shoulder, pendent from a strand of the same hue, was slung a fair lute. He could not have passed, by his looks, his sixteenth summer.

Lanti pushed rudely forward.

'A moment, saint troubadour, a moment!' he cried. 'It will please us, hearing of your mission, to have a taste of your quality.'

The youth, looking at him a little, swung his lute forward and smiled.

'What would you have, gracious sir?' he said.

'What? Why, prophesy us our case in parable.'

'I know not your name nor calling.'

'A pretty prophet, forsooth. But I will enlighten thee. I am Carlo Lanti, gentleman of the Duke, and this fair lady the wife of him we call the Count of Casa Caprona.'

The boy frowned a little, then nodded and touched the strings. And all in a moment he was improvising the strangest ditty, a sort of cantefable between prose and song:—

'A lord of little else possessed a jewel,

Of his small state incomparably the crown.

But he, going on a journey once,

To his wife committed it, saying,

"This trust with you I pledge till my return;

See, by your love, that I redeem my trust."

But she, when he was gone, thinking "he will not know,"

Procured its exact fellow in green glass,

And sold her lord's gem to one who bid her fair;

Then, conscience-haunted, wasted all those gains

Secretly, without enjoyment, lest he should hear and wonder.

But he returning, she gave him the bauble,

And, deceived, he commended her; and, shortly after, dying,

Left her that precious jewel for all dower,

Bequeathing elsewhere the residue of his estate.

Now, was not this lady very well served,

Inheriting the whole value, as she had appraised it,

Of her lord's dearest possession?

Gentles, Dishonour is a poor estate.'