The prince glanced at him queerly, as if doubting his sanity; then frowned, and sat looking from the window. The postilions had had orders to avoid both Parma and Colorno. There were private as well as state reasons for this step. The past month or so had been signalised by some cautious _pourparlers_ in the matter of a suggested marriage between the heir to the Austrian throne and the eldest child and daughter of Don Philip, and both policy and punctilio forbade a visit which might lend itself to misconstruction. If any curiosity as to the person of his possible bride affected the sedate young gentleman, he had no difficulty in repressing it. A glimpse had perhaps acted upon him to rasher effect. For, for all his youthful philosophy, Joseph was susceptible where girlish beauty was concerned. He even fell in love, years later, with the looks of his own sister, Marie-Antoinette, at Versailles, and playfully regretted that he could not marry her. Reports, of course, of the charms of the young Infanta Marie-Isabelle, had reached him; but then he was wise enough to recognise that princesses were always beautiful. It was without emotion that he saw the roofs and towers of Colorno appear and disappear at a distance among the eastern greenery. The carriage took a ford of the little river, and toiling up the slope beyond, was proceeding on its way to join the Milan road, when it was called to a sudden halt by the archduke. “Tiretta!” “Your Highness?” “That was a bewitching vision.” “It sits very prettily among its trees, to be sure.” “Pooh, man! Get out and look back.” Tiretta obeyed--and this is what he saw. The road ran straight across the river, and within the south-eastern angle made by the two was composed a little picture, very quaint and _ravissante_. It showed a leafy corner shadowed by chestnut trees, and a patch of green-embowered turf beyond, sloping to a tiny curved backwater, in which lay a miniature islet set like an aquamarine in a ring, the whole lying secluded from the road behind a high close hedge of tamarisk and juniper, in the thick of which was sunk a wooden wicket. But between the bank and islet was the wonder; for there, thigh-deep in the water, stood a young girl, plainly arrested in the act of reaching for a single golden lily which floated in the pool a yard or two beyond her grasp. There she stood, half diverted, half aghast, balancing herself by an overhanging branch, one slim arm raised, so that its sleeve dropped down almost to her arm-pit, the other, snatched hurriedly from its essay, pressing under to her knees her rebellious skirt, which yet would rise and rise again in snowy bubbles. The naiad’s umber hair had looped astray; the little milkmaid hat upon her head, with its cherry ribbon and saucy bow, was tilted askew; she stood transfixed a moment; then, with a laugh and shrug, turned and waded ashore.