with flushed divinities and their stupendous velvet hammer-cloths edged with bullion, held Odo spellbound.  He had a born taste for splendour, and the thought that he might one day sit in one of these glittering vehicles puffed his breast with pride and made him address the hunchback with sudden condescension.  “When I’m a man I shall ride in these carriages,” he said; whereat the other laughed and returned good-humouredly:  “Eh, that’s not so much to boast of, cavaliere; I shall ride in a carriage one of these days myself.”  Odo stared, not over-pleased, and the boy added:  “When I’m carried to the churchyard, I mean,” with a chuckle of relish at the joke.

From the stables they passed to the riding-school, with its open galleries supported on twisted columns, where the duke’s gentlemen managed their horses and took their exercise in bad weather.  Several rode there that morning; and among them, on a fine Arab, Odo recognised the young man in black velvet who was so often in Donna Laura’s apartments.

“Who’s that?” he whispered, pulling the hunchback’s sleeve, as the gentleman, just below them, made his horse execute a brilliant balotade.

“That?  Bless the innocent!  Why, the Count Lelio Trescorre, your illustrious mother’s cavaliere servente.”

Odo was puzzled, but some instinct of reserve withheld him from further questions.  The hunchback, however, had no such scruples.  “They do say, though,” he went on, “that her Highness has her eye on him, and in that case I’ll wager your illustrious mamma has no more chance than a sparrow against a hawk.”

The boy’s words were incomprehensible, but the vague sense that some danger might be threatening his mother’s friend made Odo whisper:  “What would her Highness do to him?”

“Make him a prime-minister, cavaliere,” the hunchback laughed.

Odo’s guide, it appeared, was not privileged to conduct him through the state apartments of the palace, and the little boy had now been four days under the ducal roof without catching so much as a glimpse of his sovereign and cousin.  The very next morning, however, Vanna swept him from his trundle-bed with the announcement that he was to be received by the Duke that day, and that the tailor was now waiting to try on his court dress.  He found his mother propped against her pillows, drinking chocolate, feeding her pet monkey and giving agitated directions to the maidservants on their knees before the open carriage-trunks.  Her excellency informed Odo that she had that moment received an express from his grandfather, the old Marquess di Donnaz; that they were to start next morning for the castle of Donnaz, and that he was to be presented to the Duke as soon as his Highness had risen from dinner.  A plump purse lay on the coverlet, and her countenance wore an air of kindness and animation which, together with the prospect of wearing a court dress and travelling to his grandfather’s castle in the mountains, so worked on Odo’s spirits that, forgetting the abate’s instructions, he sprang to her with an eager caress.