The Shrouded Portrait.
By George W. Curtis.
Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,
Turn myself round and bid the world good night;
And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing
Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)
To a world where's to be no further throwing
Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!"
Robert Browning's "Flight of the Duchess."
The Marquis di Sangrido owns the grim old palace that fronts the public square in Rieti. He is not a favorite with the peasants. Even the children of that little Italian town pass the great door or portone of the palace hurriedly, and their prattle sinks into a whisper beneath those gloomy windows. No guests ever come from Rome and pass into the palace with festal welcome to visit the Marquis di Sangrido. Those heavily-framed, gloomy windows never flash with the brilliancy of revels within. They are like dead-lights—like the staring eyes of a corpse.
When the summer-storms burst among the hills, and the gleaming lightning and rattling thunders appal the superstitious peasants, while the church-bell rings solemnly in the storm, and kneeling, with muttered prayers, the poor people of Rieti shudder and make the sign of the cross, the yellow palace of the Marquis di Sangrido stands sullen in the tempest, sardonic with a sickly glare, against the heavy black cloud that rises behind it.
On the holy feast-days, when the sun lies lazily in the great square of Rieti all the long Italian morning, and the peasants, in gay
