the hunchback to his supposed brother; but the latter, in one of their talks, brought forward Gamba’s name, without reference to the relationship, but with high praise for the young librarian’s parts.  This, at the moment, put Odo on his guard; but Trescorre having one day begged him to give Gamba warning of some petty danger that threatened him from the clerical side, it became difficult not to believe in an interest so attested; the more so as Trescorre let it be seen that Gamba’s political views were not such as to distract from his sympathy.

“The fellow’s brains,” said he, “would be of infinite use to me; but perhaps he serves us best at a distance.  All I ask is that he shall not risk himself too near Father Ignazio’s talons, for he would be a pretty morsel to throw to the Holy Office, and the weak point of such a man’s position is that, however dangerous in life, he can threaten no one from the grave.”

Odo reported this to Gamba, who heard with a two-edged smile.  “Yes,” was his comment, “he fears me enough to want to see me safe in his fold.”

Odo flushed at the implication.  “And why not?” said he.  “Could you not serve the cause better by attaching yourself openly to the liberals than by lurking in the ditch to throw mud at both parties?”

“The liberals!” sneered Gamba.  “Where are they?  And what have they done?  It was they who drove out the Jesuits; but to whom did the Society’s lands go?  To the Duke, every acre of them!  And the peasantry suffered far less under the fathers, who were good agriculturists, than under the Duke, who is too busy with monks and astrologers to give his mind to irrigation or the reclaiming of waste land.  As to the University, who replaced the Jesuits there?  Professors from Padua or Pavia?  Heaven forbid!  But holy Barnabites that have scarce Latin enough to spell out the Lives of the Saints!  The Jesuits at least gave a good education to the upper classes; but now the young noblemen are as ignorant as peasants.”

Trescorre received at his house, besides the court functionaries, all the liberal faction and the Duchess’s personal friends.  He kept a lavish state, but lacking the Bishop’s social gifts, was less successful in fusing the different elements of his circle.  The Duke, for the first few weeks after his kinsman’s arrival, received no company; and did not even appear in the Belverde’s drawing-rooms; but Odo deemed it none the less politic to show himself there without delay.

The new Marchioness of Boscofolto lived in one of the finest palaces of Pianura, but prodigality was the least of her failings, and the meagreness of her hospitality was an unfailing source of epigram to the drawing-rooms of the opposition.  True, she kept open table for half the clergy in the town (omitting, of course, those worldly ecclesiastics who frequented the episcopal palace), but it was whispered that she had persuaded her cook to take half wages in return