fashioned into colored knots, pendants, and flowers, hang from the painted rafters.  Mirrors, set in ponderous frames of old Florentine gilding, dimly reflect every object; narrow, high-backed chairs and carved wooden benches, sculptured mosaic tables and ponderous sideboards covered with choice pottery from Gubbio and Savona, and Lucca della Robbia ware.  Sunk in recesses there are dark cupboards filled with mediaeval salvers, goblets, and flagons, gold dishes, and plates, and vessels of filigree and silver.  Ivory carvings hang on the walls beside dingy pictures, or are ranged on tables of Sicilian agate and Oriental jasper.  Against the walls are also placed cabinets and caskets of carved walnut-wood and ebony inlaid with lapis-lazuli, jasper, and precious stones; also long, narrow coffers, richly carved, within which the corredo, or trousseau, of rich brides who had matched with a Guinigi, was laid.

Beyond the retiring-room is the presence-chamber.  On a dais, raised on three broad steps, stands a chair of state, surmounted by a dark-velvet canopy.  Above appear the Guinigi arms, worked in gold and black, tarnished now, as is the glory of the illustrious house they represent.  Overhead are suspended two cardinal’s hats, dropping to pieces with moth and mildew.  On the wall opposite the dais, between two ranges of narrow Venetian windows, looking into the court-yard, hangs the historic portrait of Castruccio Castracani degli Antimelli, the Napoleon of the middle ages, whose rapid conquests raised Lucca to a sovereign state.

The name of the great Castruccio (whose mother was a Guinigi) is the glory of the house, his portrait more precious than any other possession.

A gleam of ruddy light strikes through a crevice in a red curtain opposite; it falls full upon the chair of state.  That chair is not empty; a tall, dark figure is seated there.  It is the Marchesa Guinigi.  She is so thin and pale and motionless, she might pass for a ghost herself, haunting the ghosts of her ancestors!

It is her custom twice a year, on the anniversary of the birth and death of Castruccio Castracani—­to-day is the anniversary of his death—­to unlock the door leading from the hall into these state-apartments, and to remain here alone for many hours.  The key is always about her person, attached to her girdle.  No other foot but her own is ever permitted to tread these floors.

She sits in the half-light, lost in thought as in a dream.  Her head is raised, her arms are extended over the sides of the antique chair; her long, white hands hang down listlessly.  Her eyes wander vaguely along the floor; gradually they raise themselves to the portrait of her great ancestor opposite.  How well she knows every line and feature of that stern but heroic countenance, every dark curl upon that classic head, wreathed with ivy-leaves; that full, expressive eye, aquiline nose, open nostril, and chiseled lip; every fold in that ermine-bordered