The young Colonna was much struck by her beauty, and more by her gentle
and highborn grace. Like her lord she appeared younger than she was;
time seemed to spare a bloom which an experienced eye might have told
was destined to an early grave; and there was something almost girlish
in the lightness of her form--the braided luxuriance of her rich auburn
hair, and the colour that went and came, not only with every moment,
but almost with every word. The contrast between her and Montreal
became them both--it was the contrast of devoted reliance and protecting
strength: each looked fairer in the presence of the other: and as Adrian
sate down to the well-laden board, he thought he had never seen a pair
more formed for the poetic legends of their native Troubadours.

Montreal conversed gaily upon a thousand matters--pressed the wine
flasks--and selected for his guest the most delicate portions of the
delicious spicola of the neighbouring sea, and the rich flesh of the
wild boar of the Pontine Marshes.

"Tell me," said Montreal, as their hunger was now appeased--"tell me,
noble Adrian, how fares your kinsman, Signor Stephen? A brave old man
for his years."

"He bears him as the youngest of us," answered Adrian.

"Late events must have shocked him a little," said Montreal, with an
arch smile. "Ah, you look grave--yet commend my foresight;--I was the
first who prophesied to thy kinsman the rise of Cola di Rienzi; he seems
a great man--never more great than in conciliating the Colonna and the
Orsini."