“Would I deceive a true lover, as methinks you are?  Be assured.  Nay, Queen, receive your subject.”

The Queen extended her hand to Adrian, and led him to the group that still stood on the grass at a little distance.  They welcomed him as a brother, and soon forgave his abstracted courtesies, in compliment to his good mien and illustrious name.

The Queen clapped her hands, and the party again ranged themselves on the sward.  Each lady beside each gallant.  “You, Mariana, if not fatigued,” said the Queen, “shall take the lute and silence these noisy grasshoppers, which chirp about us with as much pretension as if they were nightingales.  Sing, sweet subject, sing; and let it be the song our dear friend, Signor Visdomini, (I know not if this be the same Visdomini who, three years afterwards, with one of the Medici, conducted so gallant a reinforcement to Scarperia, then besieged by Visconti d’Oleggio.) made for a kind of inaugural anthem to such as we admitted to our court.”

Mariana, who had reclined herself by the side of Adrian, took up the lute, and, after a short prelude, sung the words thus imperfectly translated:—­

The Song of the Florentine Lady.

Enjoy the more the smiles of noon If doubtful be the morrow; And know the Fort of Life is soon Betray’d to Death by Sorrow!

Death claims us all—­then, Grief, away!  We’ll own no meaner master; The clouds that darken round the day But bring the night the faster.

Love—­feast—­be merry while on earth, Such, Grave, should be thy moral!  Ev’n Death himself is friends with Mirth, And veils the tomb with laurel. (At that time, in Italy, the laurel was frequently planted over the dead.)

While gazing on the eyes I love, New life to mine is given—­If joy the lot of saints above, Joy fits us best for Heaven.

To this song, which was much applauded, succeeded those light and witty tales in which the Italian novelists furnished Voltaire and Marmontel with a model—­each, in his or her turn, taking up the discourse, and with an equal dexterity avoiding every lugubrious image or mournful reflection that might remind those graceful idlers of the vicinity of Death.  At any other time the temper and accomplishments of the young Lord di Castello would have fitted him to enjoy and to shine in that Arcadian court.  But now he in vain sought to dispel the gloom from his brow, and the anxious thought from his heart.  He revolved the intelligence he had received, wondered, guessed, hoped, and dreaded still; and if for a moment his mind returned to the scene about him, his nature, too truly poetical for the false sentiment of the place, asked itself in what, save the polished exterior and the graceful circumstance, the mirth that he now so reluctantly witnessed differed from the brutal revels in the convent of Santa Maria—­each alike in its motive, though so differing in the manner—­equally callous and equally selfish, coining horror into enjoyment.