‘I must go to my chamber,’ she said.  ’Talk of it together.  I will be with you soon.’

She left them.

Ammiani bent over to Vittoria’s ear.  ’It was this man who sent the warning to Giacomo, the signora’s husband, which he despised, and which would have saved him.

It is the only good thing I know of Barto Rizzo.  Pardon her.’

‘I do,’ said the girl, now weeping.

’She has evidently a rooted superstitious faith in these revolutionary sign-marks.  They are contagious to her.  She loves you, and believes in you, and will kneel to you for forgiveness by-and-by.  Her misery is a disease.  She thinks now, “If my husband had given heed to the warning!”

‘Yes, I see how her heart works,’ said Vittoria.  ’You knew her husband, Signor Carlo?’

’I knew him.  I served under him.  He was the brother of my love.  I shall have no other.’

Vittoria placed her hand for Ammiani to take it.  He joined his own to the fevered touch.  The heart of the young man swelled most ungovernably, but the perils of the morrow were imaged by him, circling her as with a tragic flame, and he had no word for his passion.

The door opened, when a noble little boy bounded into the room; followed by a little girl in pink and white, like a streamer in the steps of her brother.  With shouts, and with arms thrown forward, they flung themselves upon Vittoria, the boy claiming all her lap, and the girl struggling for a share of the kingdom.  Vittoria kissed them, crying, ’No, no, no, Messer Jack, this is a republic, and not an empire, and you are to have no rights of “first come”; and Amalia sits on one knee, and you on one knee, and you sit face to face, and take hands, and swear to be satisfied.’

’Then I desire not to be called an English Christian name, and you will call me Giacomo,’ said the boy.

Vittoria sang, in mountain-notes, ’Giacomo!—­Giacomo—­Giac-giac-giac . . como!’

The children listened, glistening up at her, and in conjunction jumped and shouted for more.

‘More?’ said Vittoria; ’but is the Signor Carlo no friend of ours? and does he wear a magic ring that makes him invisible?’

‘Let the German girl go to him,’ said Giacomo, and strained his throat to reach at kisses.

‘I am not a German girl,’ little Amalia protested, refusing to go to Carlo Ammiani under that stigma, though a delightful haven of open arms and knees, and filliping fingers, invited her.

‘She is not a German girl, O Signor Giacomo,’ said Vittoria, in the theatrical manner.

‘She has a German name.’

‘It’s not a German name!’ the little girl shrieked.

Giacomo set Amalia to a miauling tune.

‘So, you hate the Duchess of Graatli!’ said Vittoria.  ’Very well.  I shall remember.’

The boy declared that he did not hate his mother’s friend and sister’s godmother:  he rather liked her, he really liked her, he loved her; but he loathed the name ‘Amalia,’ and could not understand why the duchess would be a German.  He concluded by miauling ‘Amalia’ in the triumph of contempt.