"Vittoria is always a flight above me," she mentally said. "I never was, and never shall be, one of your grand intellectual ladies." This was said with that species of contempt with which too many of us imply, "Your grand intellectual ladies are great stupids, after all"--but are they so? Have they not often the best of it, even in this world? Appreciation and applause that we real stupids would be very glad of, fall to the share of the working bees that make the honey, and have not some of them, at any rate, as fair a hope as any of us, of a good place in the world to come? Thus wrote "the divine Vittoria," as she was frequently called--not in the sense of her being a doctor of divinity, but addicted to divine things:-- "There is now among us a man who is producing an extraordinary sensation--Fra Bernardino Ochino, a Capuchin, who comes in the spirit and with the power of Savonarola. Another valuable addition to our Christian circle is Signor Juan de Valdés, the new Governor of San Giacomo, and twin-brother of the Emperor's Latin secretary. How I wish you were among us! We have a very pleasant little society here, quite apart from those worldlings whose company you and I have forsworn, our chief delight being to interchange thoughts and feelings, cultivate our minds, and elevate our souls. When the hot weather comes, I shall return to Ischia. Farewell." "Thy Vittoria." "Truly," exclaimed the Duchess, "to be at Naples would be ten thousand times better than to remain here, where the malaria certainly affects me; and I am sure my dear Duke would have said so, were it only for fear of Barbarossa." So she gave the word of command, to the immense joy of her ladies, and, after a prodigious bustle of preparation, she started with quite a little army of retainers--six ladies of honour in sky-blue damask, six grooms in chocolate and blue, her maggior-domo in starched ruff and black velvet, and a competent number of men armed to the teeth. She performed the journey, no very long one, in a horse-litter, curtained with blue and silver, and piled with blue satin mattresses; and when she wished to change her position she mounted her white palfrey. CHAPTER IX. DAWN OF A PURE LIGHT.