city, was a great lover and connoisseur of music, and patron of the theatre, had been mainly instrumental in bringing La Lalli to Ravenna.  The engagement had been a most successful one.  The “Diva Bianca” had sung through the Carnival, charming all ears and hearts in Ravenna with her voice, and all eyes with her very remarkable and fascinating beauty.  And now, on this last night of the festive season, she was the cynosure of all eyes at the ball.

Bianca had, as it so happened, also chosen a Venetian costume of the same period as that of Ludovico—­about the middle of the sixteenth century.  In truth, it was mere chance that had led to this similarity.  And neither of them, as it happened, had mentioned to the other the dress they intended to wear.  Bianca, in fact, used as she was to wear costumes of all sorts, and to outshine all beauties near her in all or any of them, had thought nothing about her dress, till the evening before; and then had consulted the Marchese Lamberto on the subject:  but had been so much occupied with him during nearly the whole of that evening at his ball, that she had not said a word about it to any one else.

It could not but seem, however, to everybody that the Marchese Ludovico and La Lalli had agreed together to represent a pair belonging to the most gorgeous and picturesque days of Venetian history.  And a most magnificently handsome pair they made.  Bianca’s dress, or at least the general appearance and effect of it, will readily be imagined by those acquainted with the full-length portraits of Titian or Tintoretto.  A more strictly “proper” costume no lady could wish to wear.  And the jeunesse doree of Ravenna, who had thought it likely that the Diva would appear as some light-skirted Flora, or high-kirtled Diana, were altogether disappointed.

But there was much joking and raillery about the evident and notable pair-ship of Ludovico and Bianca; and it came to pass that, almost without any special intention on their own part, they were thrown much together, and danced together frequently.  And this, under the circumstances, was still more the case than it would have otherwise been, in consequence of the Marchese Lamberto not dancing.  It was a long time since he had done so.  There were many men dancing less fitted than he, as far as appearance and capability, and even as far as years went, to join in such amusements.  Nevertheless, all Ravenna would have been almost as much surprised to see the Marchese Lamberto dressed in mumming costume, and making one among Carnival revellers, as to see the Cardinal himself doing the same things.  He had made for himself a social position, and a life so much apart from any such levities, that his participation in them would have seemed a monstrosity.