.

THE AMOROUS DUKE.
From a window of the Palace of Babbiano the Lord of Aquila watched the amazing bustle in the courtyard below, and at his side stood Fanfulla degli Arcipreti, whom he had summoned from Perugia with assurances that, Masuccio being dead, no peril now menaced him.
It was a week after that interview at which Gian Maria had made known his intentions to his cousin, and his Highness was now upon the point of setting out for Urbino, to perform the comedy of wooing the Lady Valentina.

This was the explanation of that scurrying of servitors and pages, that parading of men-at-arms, and that stamping of horses and mules in the quadrangle below.

Francesco watched the scene with a smile of some bitterness, his companion with one of supreme satisfaction.
"Praised be Heaven for having brought his Highness at last to a sense of his duty," remarked the courtier.
"It has often happened to me," said Francesco, disregarding his companion's words, "to malign the Fates for having brought me into the world a count.

But in the future I shall give them thanks, for I see how much worse it might have been--I might have been born a prince, with a duchy to rule over.