On the whole I was not sorry when I found myself on land again, and I am convinced that the man would have upset his boat and let me drown, if he had discovered who I was. And I have often wondered who he was; perhaps a relative of the old Duchess. There was truth in the story he told, a mystery which neither I nor anybody else is ever likely to solve. The Duke of Galliera had a son, Philippo Ferrari, who refused absolutely to use the privileges which his birth bestowed upon him. What were his reasons, nobody knows. And why in default of the son, one of the richest duchies in Italy was left to my father-in-law is a question which remains, and is likely to remain, unanswerable. And partly through the strange connection of the family into which I married with Italy, partly through my love of the most beautiful and romantic land in Europe, I have lived there a great deal. I used to stay often at the magnificent palace of the Galliera family in Bologna, a sumptuous place with vast rooms paved with mosaic and glittering with rare marbles. The people of that city of colonnades and cool courtyards took a kindlier view of the new owners of the palace than the Genoese boatman did, and the ancient families of the place had that charm of manner which gives such a fascination to the cultured society of Italian towns. It was a great delight to receive them, and I used to enjoy the balls and parties in that wonderful palace. In most countries society gathers in the capital, and when there is a Court it acts as a magnet to draw people from the provinces. The unification of Italy, and the erection of the Italian kingdom, had not materially altered the structure of Italian society. It remains what it was when Italy was divided into a number of small states. Rome and the Quirinal do not attract the nobles of Venice, or Florence, or Bologna, or of other historic Italian towns: they continue to spend the winter in the cities with which their families have been associated for centuries, giving to them a certain brilliance which is not to be found in the provincial towns of France or England.