"What!" said the marquis, with a smile, "you succeeded in reading that this swashbuckler was a captain in the reign of King Manfred, and that he accompanied John of Procida to Constantinople? That is wonderful. For myself, I read the original inscription with the eyes of faith!" "You can be perfectly sure that I am not mistaken," replied Barbagallo. "I knew this gallant captain well, and I have been trying for a long time to find his portrait." Pier-Angelo roared with laughter. "Ah! so you lived in those days!" he said; "I knew that you were older than I am, Master Barbagallo, but I didn't suppose that you saw our Sicilian Vespers!" "Would that I had not seen it!" exclaimed Fra Angelo, with a sigh. "I must explain Master Barbagallo's learning, and the interest he takes in my family gallery," said the marquis to Michel. "He has passed his life in this labor of patience, and no one is so familiar as he with Sicilian genealogies. My family was connected by marriage in the past with the Princess of Palmarosa's, and even more closely with the family of Castro-Reale, of which you have doubtless heard." "I heard a great deal about it yesterday," replied Michel, with a smile. "Very good; when I became the last heir of that family, after the death of the famous prince known as the _Destatore_, all that came to me by that succession--to which I gave very little thought, I promise you--was a collection of ancestors which I did not even care to unpack, but which Master Barbagallo, being enamored of curios of that sort, took pains to clean and classify, and to hang in their proper order in the gallery you are about to inspect. There were already in that gallery, in addition to my own direct ancestors, a goodly number of ancestors of the Palmarosa line, and Princess Agatha, who cares nothing for collections of the sort, sent me hers, saying that it would be better to collect them in a single place. That gave Master Barbagallo a very long and difficult task, which he executed with honor to himself. Come, all of you, for I have many characters to present to Michel, and it may be that he will need his father's and uncle's assistance to hold his own against so many dead men." "I retire, in order not to impose my presence upon your lordships," said Master Barbagallo, after accompanying them to the gallery to deposit his Sicilian captain; "I will return some other time to put my picture in place; unless the signor marquis desires that I should give Master Michelangelo Lavoratori, whose very humble servant I am to-day and always, the history of the originals of these portraits." "What, signor majordomo," laughed Michel, "you know the story of all these characters? There are more than three hundred of them!"