clang angrily. You might think it was offended at being disturbed after its long sleep of two hundred years.”

“Yes,” confessed the duke, looking at the clock thoughtfully, “it awakes a fantastic note that will strike in the fancy of the most dull. Think what stories of love and intrigue it has listened to! What deeds of revenge and hate it has looked down upon! At what hours of agony and ecstasy have those bells not chimed? What death-knells to hopes, what peals of love and happiness!”

Jacqueline had been turning the clock slowly around. Suddenly she sank on her knees to examine it more closely, and read aloud:

Se mi guardi con cura,

Se mi ascolti con attenzione,

E se, nell’ intendermi, tu Sei cosi acorto com’ io lo sono nel dirti–

T’ arridera la Fortuna.

“Will you translate it for me, please?”

“‘If you guard me carefully, if you listen to me diligently, if you are as clever in understanding 44me as I am in telling you, Fortune will smile on you,’” translated the duke.

44

“The delicious braggart!” cried Mrs. Gordon delightedly. “Now what do you think that brave promise means, Mr. St. Hilary?”

“Pooh, pooh, madame! It promises too much to mean anything. ‘Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.’ ‘Time is money’–there are a score of proverbs as vague and as meaningless.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t cast any aspersions on my dear clock. Perhaps Luigi can read the riddle more cleverly. Do you know if there is any legend connected with the clock?”

The old man hesitated.

“Come, come, speak up,” said the duke roughly.

“Ah, yes, your Excellency,” replied the old man. “But I implore you not to sell or give away the clock. You will always regret it. Good luck goes with the clock, your Excellency.”

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