Madam, I will do your errand.
Please to follow me to an apartment more fitting your sex and seeming." With that the officer led the way across the hall to a broad staircase of white marble, along the centre of which were laid those rich Eastern carpets which at that day, when rushes strewed the chambers of an English monarch, were already common to the greater luxury of Italian palaces.

Opening a door at the first flight, he ushered Ursula and her young charge into a lofty ante-chamber, hung with arras of wrought velvets; while over the opposite door, through which the officer now vanished, were blazoned the armorial bearings which the Tribune so constantly introduced in all his pomp, not more from the love of show, than from his politic desire to mingle with the keys of the Pontiff the heraldic insignia of the Republic.
"Philip of Valois is not housed like this man!" muttered Ursula.

"If this last, I shall have done better for my charge than I recked of." The officer soon returned, and led them across an apartment of vast extent, which was indeed the great reception chamber of the palace.
Four-and-twenty columns of the Oriental alabaster which had attested the spoils of the later emperors, and had been disinterred from forgotten ruins, to grace the palace of the Reviver of the old Republic, supported the light roof, which, half Gothic, half classic, in its architecture, was inlaid with gilded and purple mosaics.

The tesselated floor was covered in the centre with cloth of gold, the walls were clothed, at intervals, with the same gorgeous hangings, relieved by panels freshly painted in the most glowing colours, with mystic and symbolical designs.
At the upper end of this royal chamber, two steps ascended to the place of the Tribune's throne, above which was the canopy wrought with the eternal armorial bearings of the Pontiff and the City.
Traversing this apartment, the officer opened the door at its extremity, which admitted to a small chamber, crowded with pages in rich dresses of silver and blue velvet.

There were few amongst them elder than Angelo; and, from their general beauty, they seemed the very flower and blossom of the city.
Short time had Angelo to gaze on his comrades that were to be:--another minute, and he and his protectress were in the presence of the Tribune's bride.
The chamber was not large--but it was large enough to prove that the beautiful daughter of Raselli had realised her visions of vanity and splendour.
It was an apartment that mocked description--it seemed a cabinet for the gems of the world.