“Lady, I wear no mask, for I would be seen:  I search these miserable places for one in whose life I live.”

“He is young, comely, evidently noble, and the plague hath not touched him:  he will serve our purpose well,” whispered one of the ladies to the other.

“You echo my own thoughts,” returned her companion; and then turning to Adrian, she said, “You seek one you are not wedded to, if you seek so fondly?”

“It is true.”

“Young and fair, with dark hair and neck of snow; I will conduct you to her.”

“Signor!”

“Follow us!”

“Know you who I am, and whom I seek?”

“Yes.”

“Can you in truth tell me aught of Irene?”

“I can:  follow me.”

“To her?”

“Yes, yes:  follow us!”

The ladies moved on as if impatient of further parley.  Amazed, doubtful, and, as if in a dream, Adrian followed them.  Their dress, manner, and the pure Tuscan of the one who had addressed him, indicated them of birth and station; but all else was a riddle which he could not solve.

They arrived at one of the bridges, where a litter and a servant on horseback holding a palfrey by the bridle were in attendance.  The ladies entered the litter, and she who had before spoken bade Adrian follow on the palfrey.

“But tell me—­” he began.

“No questions, Cavalier,” said she, impatiently; “follow the living in silence, or remain with the dead, as you list.”

With that the litter proceeded, and Adrian mounted the palfrey wonderingly, and followed his strange conductors, who moved on at a tolerably brisk pace.  They crossed the bridge, left the river on one side, and, soon ascending a gentle acclivity, the trees and flowers of the country began to succeed dull walls and empty streets.  After proceeding thus somewhat less than half an hour, they turned up a green lane remote from the road, and came suddenly upon the porticoes of a fair and stately palace.  Here the ladies descended from their litter; and Adrian, who had vainly sought to extract speech from the attendant, also dismounted, and following them across a spacious court, filled on either side with vases of flowers and orange-trees, and then through a wide hall in the farther side of the quadrangle, found himself in one of the loveliest spots eye ever saw or poet ever sung.  It was a garden plot of the most emerald verdure, bosquets of laurel and of myrtle opened on either side into vistas half overhung with clematis and rose, through whose arcades the prospect closed with statues and gushing fountains; in front, the lawn was bounded by rows of vases on marble pedestals filled with flowers, and broad and gradual flights of steps of the whitest marble led from terrace to terrace, each adorned with statues and fountains, half way down a high but softly sloping and verdant hill.  Beyond, spread in wide, various, and luxurious landscape, the vineyards and