Passing his hands over his eyes, and looking about him,--for the event just described had made the scene even more dreamlike than before,--he now found himself approaching that broad piazza bordering on the Corso, which has for its central object the sculptured column of Antoninus.

It was not far from this vicinity that Miriam had bid him wait.

Struggling onward as fast as the tide of merrymakers, setting strong against him, would permit, he was now beyond the Palazzo Colonna, and began to count the houses.

The fifth was a palace, with a long front upon the Corso, and of stately height, but somewhat grim with age.
Over its arched and pillared entrance there was a balcony, richly hung with tapestry and damask, and tenanted, for the time, by a gentleman of venerable aspect and a group of ladies.

The white hair and whiskers of the former, and the winter roses in his cheeks, had an English look; the ladies, too, showed a fair-haired Saxon bloom, and seemed to taste the mirth of the Carnival with the freshness of spectators to whom the scene was new.