The loftly noble forehead, the strongly marked brow, the well-opened calm grey eye, all told the same tale of a mind within well-balanced, thoroughly at peace with itself, and thoroughly contented with its outward manifestations, and with every particular of its position.

Clearly the Marchese di Castelmare was a remarkably handsome man.  And yet there was something about him,—­and always had been even as a young man, which seemed to be in natural accordance with the fact that he had never seemed to seek female society, save as an amphytrion receiving all Ravenna within his hospitable doors.  There was a kind of austerity about his bearing;—­a something difficult to define, which would have prevented any girl from fancying that he was at all likely to want to make love to her; a something which made it as impossible that the refined courtesy of his address should have called a pleased blush to any girl’s cheek, or made her pulse move one beat the faster, as that she should have been so affected by the imposition of the hands of the bishop who confirmed her!

Such as the Marchese was, any committee in the world would have chosen him its president, any jury in the world would have named him its foreman, any board in the world have selected him as its chairman, any deputation in the world would have put him forward as its spokesman; any sovereign in the world might have appointed him grand master of the ceremonies; but never at any period of his life would the suffrages of the ball-room have pitched upon him to be the leader of the cotillon.

Perhaps it was that his life had been always too full to spare any space for such lighter matters.  He had been left the head of his family when quite a young man, and had at once, in a great degree, stepped into the place he had ever since occupied in the social world of his native city.  And what with his music, which was with him really a passion, and what with his dabblings in science, and what with the multifarious business he had always made for himself by real and useful attention to the affairs pertaining to all the functions he had filled, his life had really been a fully occupied one.

Any man, woman, or child in Ravenna would have said, if such an unpleasant idea had crossed their minds, that what Ravenna would do without him it was frightful to think.  He was very popular, as well as profoundly respected by all classes of his fellow-citizens.  Though certainly a very proud man, his pride was of a nature that gave offence to nobody.  He was not only proud of being Marchese di Castelmare; he was very proud of the esteem, the affection and respect of his fellow-citizens.  And perhaps this was, next to his love of music, what most resembled a passion in his nature, and what most ministered to his enjoyment of life.

It was to this phoenix of a Marchese that Signor Ercole Stadione, the impresario, having comforted himself with the Conte Leandro’s punch, and got somewhat thawed, and having changed his mountain of travelling wraps for a costume proper for presenting himself in such a presence, repaired to report the result of his journey to Milan.