n is far
more, I am afraid, than we can afford."

"How much is it?"

Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trembling. The
steward burst out laughing.

"Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for a
whole year at once?" he said.

Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.

"Suppose I offered you that?" continued the steward. "And suppose I only
ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve refreshments in a
beautiful room to the company at the Marquis Melani's grand ball? What
should you say to that?"

Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked more
bewildered than before.

"You must have heard of the ball," said the steward, pompously; "the
poorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of the whole
city."

Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must have
confessed that "the talk of the whole city" had now no interest for her.
The last news from Pisa that had appealed to her sympathies was the news
of the Countess d'Ascoli's death, and of Fabio's departure to travel in
foreign countries. Since then she had heard nothing more of him. She
was as ignorant of his return to his native city as of all the reports
connected with the marquis's ball. Something in her own heart--some
feeling which she had neither the desire nor the capacity to
analyze--had brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which now
connected itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabio
was still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributed
to her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation of
revisiting the scene that had been associated with the first great
happiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her life. Among all
the poor people of Pisa, she was perhaps the very last whose curiosity
could be awakened, or whose attention could be attracted by the rumor of
gayeties at the Melani Palace.

But she could not confess all this; she could only listen with great
humility and no small surprise, while the steward, in compassion for her
ignorance, and with the hope of tempting her into accepting his offered
engagement, described the arrangements of the approaching festival, and
dwelt fondly on the magnificence of the Arcadian bowers, and the beauty
of the shepherdesses' tunics. As soon as he had done, Nanina ventured on
the confession that she should feel rather nervous in a grand dress that