despatch that has been mentioned, which had hinted at favourable possibilities in the future as to certain ambitious hopes that had rarely failed to busy his brain every night as he laid it on the pillow for many a year.  So he smiled inwardly a gentle moralizing smile as he thought how gratified ambition had power to stir up the flagging passions and stimulate the sinking energies even as the golden bowl is on the eve of being broken.

The Marchese, however, left the Cardinal’s presence a much happier man for the nonce than he had entered it, his mental vision filled with pictures of ribbons, stars and crosses, with, perhaps, a statue—­between the two ancient columns in the Piazza Maggiore would be an excellent site—­in the background.

Ah! if only he could have had the courage to run away from temptation.

CHAPTER VIII

A Carnival Reception

On that Monday night all the world of Ravenna were assembled in the suite of state-rooms on the piano noble of the Palazzo di Castelmare.  The cards of invitation had announced that masks would be welcomed by the noble host; and a large number of the younger portion of the society accordingly presented themselves in dominoes and the silk half-masks which are usually worn in conjunction with them.  But very few of either ladies or gentlemen came in character.  Such costumes were mostly reserved for the ball, which was to take place at the Circolo dei Nobili on the following evening.  That was of course the wind-up of the Carnival; and besides it was felt, that a shade or two more of licence and of the ascendancy of the Lord of Misrule might fitly be permissible at the Circolo, than was quite de mise in the rooms of so grave and reverend a Signor as the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare.

A few determined revellers would lose no opportunity of enjoying the delight of dressing themselves up in costumes, which they deemed specially adapted to show off to advantage either their physical perfections or their intellectual and social pretensions.  Sometimes, as may have been observed by those who have witnessed such revelries, it unfortunately happens that both the above desirable results are not quite compatible.  Our friend the Conte Leandro, for instance, having determined to appear at the Circolo ball in the character of Dante—­which, for a poet at Ravenna, was a very proper and natural selection—­presented himself at the Palazzo Castelmare in that of Apollo—­an equally well-imagined presentation; had it not been that the happy intellectual analogy was less striking to the vulgar eye, than the remarkable exhibition of knock-knees and bow-legs resulting from the use of the “fleshings;” which constituted an indispensable portion of the god’s attire.

He carried in one hand what had very much the appearance of a gilt gridiron; but was intended to represent a lyre; and in the other a paper, which was soon known to contain a poem of congratulation addressed to the host, on the announcement which, all the city well knew by this time, had been made to him that morning.