The young man behind the head-dresses, now nodding viciously, moved nearer the front. Dressed in the rough though not unpicturesque fashion of the northern fisherman, a touch of color in his apparel lent to his bearing a note of romance the bold expression of his swarthy face did not belie. For a few moments he watched the girl; the changing eyes and lips, shadowed by hair that shone and flashed like bright burnished gold; then catching her gaze, the black eyes gleamed. An instant their eyes lingered; hers startled, puzzled. "Where have I seen him?" My lady, in turning, paused to swing over her shoulders a glance. "Whom?" asked her companion in the dance--a fair, handsome nobleman of slim figure and elegant bearing. "That's just what I can't tell you," she answered, sweeping a courtesy that fitted the rhythm of the music. "Only a face I should remember!" "Should?" The Marquis' look followed hers. But the subject of their conversation, as if divining the trend of their talk, had drawn back. "Oh, he is gone now," she answered. "A malcontent, perhaps! One meets them nowadays." "No, no! He did not look--" "Some poor fellow, then, your beauty has entrapped?" he insinuated. "Humble admirer!" "Then I would remember him!" she laughed as the dance came to an end. Now in a tented pavilion, servants, richly garbed in festal costume, passed among the guests, circulating trays, bright with golden dishes and goblets, stamped with the ancient insignia of the Mount, and once the property of the affluent monks, early rulers of the place. Other attendants followed, bearing light delicacies, confections and marvelous frosted towers and structures from the castle kitchen. "The patron saint in sugar!" Merry exclamations greeted these examples of skill and cunning. "Are we to devour the saint?" "Ah, no; he is only to look at!" "But the Mount in cake--?" "You may cut into that--though beware!--not so deep as the dungeons!" "A piece of the cloister!" "A bit of the abbey!" "And you, Elise?" The girl reached gaily. "A little of the froth of the sea!" Meanwhile, not far distant, a barrel had been broached and wine was being circulated among the people. There, master of ceremonies, Beppo dispensed advice with the beverage, his grumbling talk heard above the light laughter and chatter of the lords and ladies. "Drink to his Excellency!" As he spoke, the Governor's man, from the elevated stand upon which he stood, gazed arrogantly around him. "Clods! Sponges that sop without a word of thanks! Who only think of your stomachs! Drink to the Governor, I say!" "To the Governor!" exclaimed a few, but it might have been noticed they were men from the town, directly beneath the shadow of his Excellency's castle, and now close within reach of the fat factotum's arm. "Once more! Had I the ordering of wine, the barrels would all be empty ones, but her ladyship would be generous, and--"