Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/246

 and to skilful carvers, so that Monte di San Giuliano became our Italian Parnassus, and the castle the watch-tower of the Arts and Humanities. My lord had for wife a beautiful and illustrious lady, called Constance degli Interminelli, the same being of a right noble house, of an angelic comeliness, and endowed with a cheerful imagination which got fun out of everything and even out of her husband, who, in spite of his learning and good parts was somewhat gloomy and austere. And though this couple were well matched in years, yet they had no children, and people said that my lord spent his nights chiefly in mending and annotating Greek and Latin texts, and labouring to find out whether et ita or itaque was most to Tully's liking, and holding up old deeds and charters to the lamp to see if they were written over some golden work of the ancients. But the duchess never remonstrated with him or spoke angrily about his bad taste in preferring his parchments to his wife, for he was a young man, and she thought he would sow these learned oats of his and come to his senses before very long. And then, Constance would whisper to herself, my lord will notice my golden hair and blue eyes, and forget all about these heathens and their cold philosophy. She once tried meddling with his lamp, in such wise that it went out in a slow and sickly manner, just as the duke had taken out his manuscript of Homer, and was sitting down to make a night of it; but my lord flew into such a furious rage (being a choleric man when provoked) that this expedient was never again at-