“I thought they 'd never go,” said she, with a sigh; “but I know why they remained,--they all thought the Prince of Istria was coming. They saw his carriage stop here this evening, and heard he had sent up to know if I received. I wrote on a card, 'To-morrow at dinner, at eight;' so be sure you are here to meet him.” Sir Horace bowed, and smiled his acceptance. “And your journey, dear Princess,” said he, between the puffs of his smoke, “was it pleasant?” “It might have been well enough, but I was obliged to make a great _détour_. The Duchess detained me at Parma for some letters, and then sent me across the mountains of Pontremoli--a frightful road--on a secret mission to Massa.” “To Massa! of all earthly places.” “Even so. They had sent down there, some eight or nine months ago, the young Count Wahnsdorf, the Archduchess Sophia's son, who, having got into all manner of dissipation at Vienna, and lost largely at play, it was judged expedient to exile him for a season; and as the Duke of Modena offered his aid to their plans, he was named to a troop in a dragoon regiment, and appointed aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness. Are you attending; or has your Excellency lost the clew of my story?” “I am all ears; only waiting anxiously to hear: who is she?” “Oh, then, you suspect a woman in the case?” “I am sure of it, dear Princess. The very accents of your voice prepared me for a bit of romance.” “Yes, you are right; he has fallen in love,--so desperately in love that he is incessant in his appeals to the Duchess to intercede with his family and grant him leave to marry.” “To marry whom?” asked Sir Horace. “That's the very question which he cannot answer himself; and when pressed for information, can only reply that 'she is an angel.' Now, angels are not always of good family; they have sometimes very humble parents, and very small fortunes.” “_Hélas!_” sighed the diplomatist, pitifully. “This angel, it would seem, is untraceable. She arrived with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, from Corsica; they landed at Spezzia, with an English passport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. On arriving at Massa they took a villa close to the town, and established themselves with all the circumstance of people well-off as to means. They, however, neither received visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They even so far withdrew themselves from public view that they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see.” “On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only, it is a story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one preserving the incognito except where disclosure would have revealed a shame.” “Your Excellency mistakes,” replied she; “the incognito is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means of awakening curiosity.”