This dangerous Lucrezia, however, had her serious moments. After the pageants were over, she took out of her traveling-case the Dante and Petrarch she had brought for her daily reading, also some histories, with her manual of devotion. She had, too, her literary circle of poets, savants, men of letters, prelates, cardinals, and clever women who spoke in Latin and wrote Greek quite naturally and as a matter of course. They talked of manners, art, and philosophy, as at Urbino, but perhaps not quite so seriously; they talked also of love, spiritual and otherwise. The inevitable Bembo was there for a time, and afterward wrote Platonic letters about literature to the friend of his soul, which she answered with insight and discrimination as well as matronly discretion. These letters were preserved, with a lock of her golden hair. There is little trace of the early Lucrezia in her later years. No more worldly vanities. She prayed a great deal, and spent her evenings in working beautiful designs in embroidery with the ladies of her court. “Her husband and his subjects all loved her for her gracious manners and her piety,” we are told. She was not old when she died,--two or three years past forty,--leaving an inconsolable husband and several children. In a letter of condolence the Doge of Venice gives great praise to her devotion and her fine qualities of character. The most distinguished prelates of the day pay a tribute to her many virtues. The experiences of her life, which were dark enough at its beginning and too surely not blameless, are wrapped in a mystery so deep that we cannot fairly judge them to-day.