"Stay! better put in the corner, 'To be shown to the Reverend Father Peter, at the Casa Morelli, Florence, in case the Signor Lorenzo Visconti should have arrived.' If he be there, it would be useless to send the letter on to France; if not there, Father Peter will forward it." Leonora obeyed willingly, for during the short time she had been in her father's house she had found that the friar was high in Ramiro's good opinion, and that all the attendants, taking the colour of their thoughts from those of their lord, spoke well of Father Peter. Nor had the little which she had seen of him in Florence at all enlightened her as to the real character of the man. To the eyes of children fragments of coloured glass look like gems, and Leonora was too young to distinguish in a moment, as one old and experienced can sometimes do, the false from the true stone. The direction was written in the corner with her own hand, which prevented the letter from ever reaching her lover. No sooner was it shown to Mardocchi than he told the messenger he would keep it, as he had certain intelligence that the young cavalier would be in Florence in three days. Lorenzo Visconti had been in Florence long before, and from the old porter at the Casa Morelli had heard the story which Mardocchi had put in the man's mouth; that Leonora had gone to join her father at Imola, thence to proceed immediately to some distant part of Italy, no one knew where. The deaf old man's kindly feeling prevented him from telling all that Mardocchi suggested, namely, that it was Ramiro d'Orco's intention to wed his daughter to some of his new friends in the south, and that Leonora made no opposition. That was the tale which reached Lorenzo afterwards, for it was diligently spread; and as more than half of the intelligence of Europe was in those days conveyed by rumour, it passed current with most men, though it came in no very tangible form.