A Siren | Page 2

handkerchiefs of the revellers amid a last frantic
rondo, till some four hours after midnight. But in provincial Ravenna, a
Pope's city under the rule of a Cardinal Legate, there is--or was in the
days when the Pope held sway there-- no Veglione. Its place was
supplied, as far as "the society" of the city was concerned, by a ball at
the "Circolo dei Nobili."
It was not, therefore, till four o'clock in the morning, or perhaps even a
little later, that the lights would be extinguished on the night in
question at the "Circolo dei Nobili," and Carnival would, in truth, be
over, and the tired holiday-makers would go home to their beds.
A few hours more remained, and the revelry was at its height, and the
dancers danced as knowing that their minutes were numbered.
There had been a ball on the previous night at the Palazzo of the
Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare. But the scene at the Circolo was a
much more brilliant, animated, and varied one than that of the night
before at the Castelmare palace. The Marchese Lamberto was the
wealthiest noble in Ravenna, and--putting aside his friend the Cardinal
Legate--was, in many other respects, the first and foremost man of the
city. He was a bachelor of some fifty years old. And bachelors' houses
and bachelors' balls have the reputation of enjoying the privilege of a
somewhat freer and more unreserved gaiety and jollity than those of
their neighbours more heavily weighted with the cares and
responsibilities of life. But such was not the case at the Palazzo
Castelmare. Presided over on such occasions as that of the great annual
Carnival ball by a widowed sister-in-law of the Marchese, the
Castelmare palace was the most decorous and respectable house, as its
master was the most decorous and respectable man, in Ravenna.
Not that it was a dull house. The Marchese Lamberto, though a grave
and dignified personage in the eyes of the "jeunesse doree" of Ravenna,
was looked up to as one of the best loved, as well as most respected,
men in the city. And there was not a member of the "society" who
would not have been sadly hurt at not being invited to the great annual

Carnival ball at the Castelmare palace. But the same degree of laissez
aller jollity would not have been "de mise" there as was permissible at
the Circolo. The fun was not so fast and furious as it was wont to be at
the club of the nobles on the last night of Carnival.
The whole society were at the latter gathering. All the nobles of
Ravenna were the hosts. and everybody was there solely and entirely to
amuse and enjoy themselves. Host and guests, indeed, were almost
identical. There were but few persons present, and those strangers to
the town, who did not belong to their own class.
To the Marchese, on the previous night, most of the company had
contented themselves with going in "domino." At the Circolo ball a
very large proportion of the dancers were in costume. The Conte
Leandro Lombardoni,--lady-killer, Don Juan, and poet, whose fortunes
and misfortunes in these characters had made him the butt of the entire
society, and had perhaps contributed, together with his well- known
extraordinarily pronounced propensity for cramming himself with
pastry, to give him the pale, puffed, pasty face, swelling around a pair
of pale fish-like eyes, that distinguished him,--the Conte Leandro
Lombardoni; indeed, had gone to the Castelmare palace as "Apollo," in
a costume which young Ludovico Castelmare, the Marchese
Lamberto's nephew, would insist on mistaking for that of Aesop; and
had now, according to a programme perfectly well known previously
throughout the city, come to the Circolo as "Dante." The Tuscan
"lucco," or long flowing gown, had at least the advantage of concealing
from the public eye much that the Apollo costume had injudiciously
exhibited.
Ludovico Castelmare had adopted the costume of a Venetian noble of
the sixteenth century; and very strikingly handsome he looked in that
most picturesque of all dresses. The Marchese Lamberto was at the ball,
of course, but not in costume. Perhaps the most striking figure in the
rooms, however, was one of those few persons who have been
mentioned as present, but not belonging to Ravenna, or to the class of
its nobles. This was a lady, well known at that day throughout Italy as
Bianca Lalli--"La Lalli," or "La Bianca," in theatrical parlance--for she

was one of the first singers of the day. Special circumstances--to be
explained at a future page--had rendered it possible for remote little
Ravenna to secure the celebrated artist for the Carnival, which was now
expiring. The Marchese Lamberto, who, among many other avocations
and occupations, all of them contributing in some way or other