He was attending the Admiral, who was, of course, conversing with the Governor, who even in the midst of the festivities would from time to time try and extract a promise from the Admiral to withdraw his ships. The conversation was through the interpretations of Will and the chaplain; and by the Governor was standing a young girl attended by a brother in place of a mother. I may say at once that she was of extraordinary beauty: somewhat tall and slender, distinguished to an unusual degree by the singular grace of figure and carriage characteristic of young Sicilian women. Her hair, which waved beautifully, was dusky rather than dark; and a dusky complexion, almost transparent in its purity, was thrown up by the wonderful Sicilian eyes, which are not brown, but of a very dark grey, looking blue in some lights and black in others; while the note of delicate refinement suggested by the slight, beautifully carried figure, was maintained by the delicacy of the thin nose of classical straightness, and the thin mouth. Thin mouths are ordinarily taken to be typical of cruelty, but this by no means exhausts the category. There is another kind of thin lips typical of sensibility, and yet another typical of passion, to some degree of animal passion, but more of an intense ardour of devotion. Donna Rusidda's lips had both these last two elements in them. Devotion and extreme sensibility mingled curiously with the archness of her face. Donna Rosalia[1] (or Rusidda) di Mardolce and her brother Don Ruggiero, who was the Prince of Favara, were Palermitans. They lived in the old half-Arabic palace of the Favara, which was the great Emperor Frederick II.'s favourite summer residence, and which had come down to them through many generations. But they were connected with Syracuse through their mother, who belonged to the ancient family of the Mont' alti. The palace of the Mont' alti, which we saw the next day, must, when it was built, four hundred years ago, have been one of the most beautiful in Syracuse. The Gothic windows, rather in the Venetian style, of its upper storey have an Arabic delicacy and airiness. But in our day quite a mean street had grown up about it, and the last of the Mont' alti, the widower uncle with whom the young Prince and his sister were staying, lived in a mere corner of his palace, only able to maintain his rusty equipages by practising the strictest economy in every other way. People prophesied that these, too, would go soon, and the last of the Mont' alti of Milocca, the proudest barons of Syracuse in the Middle Ages, seek death by his own hand, when he could no longer afford the last poor appurtenances of his rank. [1] Rosalia is pronounced Rōsă-lēă. Rusidda is a pet abbreviation of it. However, I shall have little more to say of him: he only comes into my chronicle because "Rusidda Favara," as she was generally called, was staying under his roof when she and Will met.