shining like a star within its shadows. She would have left a charge to some one to feed it.
"We seem to leave all that sort of thing to the women," he said to himself. Then, after a moment, "I don't know why a man shouldn't be pious after his own way. It would only be gentlemanly, it seems to me, to salute the Almighty on proper occasions and pay him the compliments which please him. The trouble is that people seem to think it is necessary to make a grimace on such occasions. That is what spoils them for the world. After all, he made the world and us; and if we don't always like the way things go, why, discipline must be maintained. My soldiers didn't like to pitch the tents and cook supper after a long march in the rain. Per Bacco! I suppose God has something to say about this business with Laura."
He touched his hat on naming God, and began to walk slowly and thoughtfully up and down the level. "I'm ready to take his orders," he added, presently, and took his hat off and stood there on the mountain, uncovered, in the presence of the great Commander-in-chief.
There was no voice of command; no clear word heard or read in the past came up to his mind as an answer as he stood waiting there. But a butterfly flew by him; and he remembered seeing his two boys chasing a butterfly in the garden that morning. Remembering his boys, a new train of thought arose. Poor children! they would not have in after-years such a pure and noble vision of their childhood's home as hung, a shining dawn, about his earliest recollections. He must do the best he could for them. At least they should not have to remember strife or shame, if he could help it.
"I wonder what they are doing now?" he thought. "I will go down and talk with the little monkeys. They are fine fellows, both of them. I'll teach them what 'Su, Rubiera!' ought to mean." It was his family motto.
He put his hat on and walked down the mountain almost as rapidly as he had come up. He knew his way now. He must make such peace with his wife as he could, for the boys' sake, and teach them what honor is, if she did not.
Reaching the valley, he stopped abruptly with an exclamation. "Why, I've got my orders!" he said. "They weren't brought by an orderly, nor shouted down the lines, nor thundered out of the skies. But I've got my orders." His fine face lighted with a smiling wonder. "Is that the way God does? I don't wonder they preach about him, then. But it's a woman's way. My mother, now, would have brought the boys forward. Su, Rubiera! Marriage is a combat from which there is no retreat. But I'd rather face a battery than an angry woman."
When he reached the garden, his two sons rushed to meet him with loud cries of joy. They were real boys, not manikins, and he was their playmate.
Roberto, alias Robertino, alias Tino, four years of age, Marquis of Subvite, was a blond beauty like his father. Ernesto, alias Erne, one year younger, was dark of eyes and hair like his mother. Both were tall, healthy, and full of life, and both adored their father. They had just returned from a drive taken with their nurse, their mother having been invisible since the tea-table-oversetting.
D'Rubiera lifted one after another in his strong hands to the level of a kiss, and set him carefully down again.
"Where is mamma?" he asked, glancing up at the windows.
The nurse came forward. "Madama is not well, Signor Duca," she said. "She has gone to bed, and has headache and a little fever. Rosina has just sent Giacomo after Dr. Marionelli."
D'Rubiera politely expressed his concern. "And now, boys, you shall dine with me," he said. "Off with you, and get ready. And, Clelia, send Rosina to me when she can leave the duchess."
Rosina came promptly, and gave the same account of her mistress's health which the nurse had already given. D'Rubiera listened to her story without a sign of incredulity. "Go and tell
