Arriving in front of the palace, the steward found workmen engaged in planning the external decorations and illuminations for the night of the ball. A little crowd had already assembled to see the ladders raised and the scaffoldings put up. He observed among them, standing near the outskirts of the throng, a lady who attracted his attention (he was an ardent admirer of the fair sex) by the beauty and symmetry of her figure. While he lingered for a moment to look at her, a shaggy poodle-dog (licking his chops, as if he had just had something to eat) trotted by, stopped suddenly close to the lady, sniffed suspiciously for an instant, and then began to growl at her without the slightest apparent provocation. The steward advancing politely with his stick to drive the dog away, saw the lady start, and heard her exclaim to herself amazedly: “You here, you beast! Can Nanina have come back to Pisa?” This last exclamation gave the steward, as a gallant man, an excuse for speaking to the elegant stranger. “Excuse me, madam,” he said, “but I heard you mention the name of Nanina. May I ask whether you mean a pretty little work-girl who lives near the Campo Santo?” “The same,” said the lady, looking very much surprised and interested immediately. “It may be a gratification to you, madam, to know that she has just returned to Pisa,” continued the steward, politely; “and, moreover, that she is in a fair way to rise in the world. I have just engaged her to wait at the marquis’s grand ball, and I need hardly say, under those circumstances, that if she plays her cards properly her fortune is made.” The lady bowed, looked at her informant very intently and thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly walked away without uttering a word. “A curious woman,” thought the steward, entering the palace. “I must ask Number Thirty about her to-morrow.” CHAPTER II. The death of Maddalena d’Ascoli produced a complete change in the lives of her father and her uncle. After the first shock of the bereavement was over, Luca Lomi declared that it would be impossible for him to work in his studio again--for some time to come at least--after the death of the beloved daughter, with whom every corner of it was now so sadly and closely associated. He accordingly accepted an engagement to assist in restoring several newly discovered works of ancient sculpture at Naples, and set forth for that city, leaving the care of his work-rooms at Pisa entirely to his brother.