“Oh, I have heard so much of the Pineta.  They say it is so lovely.”

“The most beautiful forest in the world.  And this is just the time when it is in its greatest beauty,—­the early spring, when the wild flowers are all beginning to blossom, and the birds are all singing.  There is nothing like our Pineta!”

“I should so like to see it.  It does seem really a shame to leave Ravenna without ever having seen the Pineta.”

“Oh, you must not dream of doing so.  You must make a little excursion one of these fine spring days.  It is just the time for it.  Some morning, the earlier the better.  But I dare say your habits are not very matutinal, Signora?”

“Well, not very, for the most part.  But I would willingly make them matutinal for such a purpose at any time.  How far is it?”

“Oh, a mere nothing—­at the city gates almost a couple of miles, perhaps.  You may go out by the Porta Nuova, at the end of the Corso, and so to that part of the forest which lies to the southward of the city; or by the northern road, which very soon enters the wood on that side.  Perhaps the finest part of the Pineta is that to the southwards.  Of all places in the world it is the spot for a colazione al fresco.”

“I should so like it.  I have heard of the Pineta di Ravenna all my life.”

“What do you say to going this very morning?” said Ludovico, after thinking for a minute.  “There is no time like the present.  It will be a charming finish to our Carnival—­new and original, too!  Do you feel as if you had go enough left for it?”

“Oh, as for that,” said Bianca, laughing with lips and eyes, “I am up to anything.  I should like it of all things.  But—­”

“Ah! what a terrible word that ‘but’ is.  But what?” said Ludovico, who had no sooner conceived the idea than he became eager to put it into execution.  “But what?”

“But—­a great many things.  Unhappily, there is no word comes oftener into one’s life than that odious ‘but.’  But who is to go with me?  I cannot go all alone by myself?”

“Oh, that’s no but at all.  Of course, Signora, I did not propose such an expedition to you without proposing to myself the honour of accompanying you,” said Ludovico with a profound bow.

“What a scappata!  I should like it of all things.  But—­there it comes again! `But’ the second; will not the good people say all sorts of ill-natured and absurd things?”

“Not a bit of it—­in my case, Signora.  Everybody knows that we have been very good friends; and that I have not been coxcomb enough to have ever hoped to be aught more to you, having been protected, as they all know, from such danger in the only way in which a man could possibly be protected from it,” said Ludovico, bowing again.

“Dear me!  What way is that?  It might be so useful to know.  Would it be equally applicable to a lady, I wonder?” said Bianca, looking at him half laughingly, half-poutingly, with her head on one side.  “Oh yes! perfectly applicable in all cases, Signora.  It is only to have no heart to lose, having lost it already,” returned he.