lady’s glass, answered Felippo. ‘Well,—it is filled with white wine, like all the rest,’ said the old gentleman, and he called the bystanders to witness, who, with one voice, declared the wine to be white.
“Felippo would not drink it however, and when the silent lady turned round on him a second time, he trembled even more than before, insomuch that he quitted his place at table, took his host aside, and when they had conversed for some time privately, the latter, having taken his resolution, addressed himself in a loud voice to the company: ‘For reasons,’ said he, ‘which are afterwards to be explained, I must request, as a particular favour, that all my worthy friends now present, will, for a moment, take off their masks.’ As in these words he only expressed a general wish, his request was complied with in an instant,—every countenance was uncovered, that of the silent lady excepted, on whom the looks of the whole party were turned with an expression of disappointment and suspicion. ‘You are the only mask left among us,’ said her host after a long pause; ‘dare I not hope that you will indulge me so far?’ She persisted, however, in the same
