It was difficult to keep in mind that the real kings and queens had mouldered into dust under the stone where reposed their counterfeit presentments. Again and again we had to send away the impression that we were looking at the actual bodies, transformed by the slow process of centuries into marble, together with their guardian lions, their favourite hounds, and their curly lambs. The endless slumber of these royal men and women of Savoie seemed magical, mysterious. We felt that, if we but had the secret of the talisman, we could wake them; that they would slowly rise on elbow, and gaze at us, stony-eyed, and reproachful for shattering their dreams. The murmurous silence of the church whispered broken snatches of their life stories--not that part which we could read in history, or see graven in Latin on their tombs, but that part of which they might choose to dream. Had those knightly men in carven armour loved the marble ladies lying in stately right of possession by their sides, or had their fancy wandered to others whose dust lay now in some far, obscure corner of earth? If my homage could have compensated in any small degree for kingly unfaith, a drop of balm would have fallen upon the marble heart of each royal lady to whom such injustice had perchance been done; for I loved them all for their noble dignity, and the sweet femininity which remained to them even under the mask of stone. Their names alone warmed the blood with the wine of romance: the Princess Yolande; the Duchess Beatrix; the Lady Melusine. Surely, with such names and such profiles, they had been worth a man's living or dying for; and if life had not been so vivid for me that day, I should have wished myself back in the far past, in heavy, uncomfortable armour, fighting their battles. "'Where are all the dear, dead women?'" asked the Boy. "'What's become of all the gold that used to hang, and brush their shoulders?' Maybe part of the answer to Browning's question lies in those tombs." "They were Princesses, like your sister," said I. "I've been fancying them with her eyes." "What do you know about her eyes?" he asked quickly. "I imagine them like yours." "Let's get out into the sunshine again," said the Boy. "I'm afraid it's time to leave the Princesses, and go back to the Contessa." [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV The Revenge of the Mountain "Contending with the fretful elements." --SHAKESPEARE. It is the early bird which gathers the worm, if the worm has thoughtlessly got up early too; but it is also the bird which comes flying from afar off, whatever his engagements elsewhere may be; the bird which, having come, remains on the spot favoured by the worm, singing sweet songs to charm it into a mood ripe for the gathering. Such a bird was Paolo, and such--but perhaps it would be more gallant not to carry the simile further, since even poetry could scarcely license it.