THE POT OF BASIL BY BERNARD CAPES AUTHOR OF “A JAY OF ITALY,” “BAG AND BAGGAGE,” “JESSIE BAZLEY.” LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD. 1913 NOTE For the attempt here made to endue with life and circumstance a little tragic romance of the past, the motive is to be referred to a recently published book of memoirs, in whose pages is incidentally made public for the first time the brief legend of which this is an amplification. The author hopes that he will not be thought to have dealt profanely with the spirit of a little tale, so old, so new, and yet so touching in its eternal simplicity. CONTENTS I. The Nixie II. Aquaviva III. The Compact IV. Love’s Ambassador V. Il Trovatore VI. Non Dolce far Niente VII. Love-in-a-Mist VIII. Correspondence IX. The Decoy X. The Orange Grove XI. Sweet Basil XII. Paolo and Francesca XIII. Tokens XIV. Confession XV. A Bolt from the Blue XVI. Fast bind, Fast find XVII. The Lost Presence XVIII. An Interview XIX. “Mariana” XX. The Face in the Crowd XXI. Across the Bridge XXII. Anticipation XXIII. “In the Silent Woody Places” XXIV. Rapture XXV. Delirium XXVI. Within the Presbytery XXVII. The Cry in the Garden XXVIII. A Posthumous Existence XXIX. At Rest THE POT OF BASIL “Fair Isabel: poor simple Isabel.” CHAPTER I. THE NIXIE It was a very hot day in Colorno, the petty Versailles of the Dukes of Parma. The little channels irrigating the plains all about, and drawn every one from the near depleted basin of the small river which a few miles northward ran into the Po, were spun as thin as silver wire. The effect from a distance was as of a network of snail-tracks, stiffened in a dry morning, and all making for the oasis of the village, where was to be found at least the shade of trees and gardens. Elsewhere there was little. The domains of Don Philip, wrote the Minister Maulevrier, _à propos_ some hounds “de toute beauté” presented to the duke by his devoted father-in-law, Louis XV., were no huntsman’s paradise, since they possessed “ni bois, ni fauve.” The country was like a green tray, rimmed by the low blue ramparts of the Alps and Apennines far distant. In the midst stood Colorno, a dainty confection, as it were, of puff paste and sugar. It lay basking in the sunlight, very white, very sleepy, very empty. Its duke and court were at the capital, ten miles southward, Madame Louise-Elizabeth, its restless scheming duchess, was hastening towards her cruel end at Versailles--she was to die, like her father, like her husband, like her son, like many another relation, of the common scourge, “la petite vérole”--and only the three children of the marriage remained ensconced, for purposes of health and education, at the “résidence d’été.”