In the street called Via del Pelastri, near the church San Ambrosio stands the house of Giustino Canacci, one of the most wealthy, most highly honored, of Florentine merchants.

It is past midnight, but Caterina Canacci sits in the great salon, in the attitude of one listening for distant sounds—sits with an air of expectation. She goes to the window, and looks out, and listens. The moon has disappeared, the heavens have grown dark, threatening one of those sudden storms so common in Italy. She moves to a door at the further end of the apartment, and bends her head to catch the sound from within—the low, regular breathing of one asleep. She softly opens the door, and though the taper burns faintly, it gives light enough to show the benignant features of an old man—the white locks lying upon the pillow, the mild lips parted with a half smile, almost the smile of a sleeping child, it speaks such absence of care, such sweetness of repose.

Caterina closes the door noiselessly, for she has heard a light signal, and flits across the spacious apartment, down the great stair, cautiously lifts the chains of the hall door, and draws back the bolt. A cavalier enters, and is joyfully greeted.

"Jacopo, how bravely you are attired to-night!" she exclaimed with child-like admiration, examining his gala dress. "Come in, step softly; he has only just fallen asleep."

Chains and bolts are replaced, and the lovers pass up the stair, and enter the apartment Caterina has just quitted. They sit side by side, and while the visitor twines his fingers in and out among the loosened tangles of those soft, bright locks, Caterina prattles to him. Some chance word has touched a chord that has opened her heart, and she is telling of grinding poverty, of hard struggles, of the goodness of Giustino Canacci, who came one day to bid her wear his name with a ring, that he might save her and her kindred from further misery. She loved him for his goodness, she said, and then sorrowfully added, Was she not wrong to permit this gay cavalier to visit her so often, and very wrong to have given him her word to hide those visits from her husband? Besides, how little she knew of the cavalier himself. Nothing but that his name was "Jacopo," and that he looked the noblest gentleman she ever saw. And how had he come to notice her, or she him? Only from seeing each other day after day, as she sat at the casement. She had not meant to drop the flower—indeed she had not—which fell from her hands one day, and which he picked up and gained admission to return; though, after all, he did not give it back, as he well knew. How strange that, from that hour to this, he had come so often, and yet she knew nothing about him!

"Except that he loves you!" replied he, fervently.