play. As soon as I came in she
graciously gave me her hand, which I kissed, calling her my cousin.

"Did you tell the duke you were my cousin?" said she.

"No," I replied.

"Very good, then I will do so myself; come and dine with me to-morrow."

She then left the house, and I went to visit the ballet-girls, who were
undressing: The Binetti, who was one of the oldest of my acquaintances,
was in an ecstasy of joy at seeing me, and asked me to dine with her
every day. Cartz, the violin, who had been with me in the orchestra at
St. Samuel's, introduced me to his pretty daughter, saying,

"She is not made for the duke's eyes to gaze on, and he shall never have
her."

The good man was no prophet, as the duke got possession of her a short
time after. She presented him with two babies, but these pledges of
affection could not fix the inconstant prince. Nevertheless, she was a
girl of the most captivating kind, for to the most perfect beauty she
added grace, wit, goodness, and kindness, which won everyone's heart. But
the duke was satiated, and his only pleasure lay in novelty.

After her I saw the Vulcani, whom I had known at Dresden, and who
suddenly presented her husband to me. He threw his arms round my neck. He
was Baletti, brother of my faithless one, a young man of great talent of
whom I was very fond.

I was surrounded by all these friends, when the officer whom I had so
foolishly told that I was related to the Gardella came in and began to
tell the story. The Binetti, after hearing it, said to him,

"It's a lie."

"But my dear," said I to her, "you can't be better informed on the
subject than I am." She replied by laughing, but Cartz said, very
wittily,

"As Gardella is only a boatman's daughter, like Binetti, the latter
thinks, and very rightly, that you ought to have given her the refusal of
your cousinship."

Next day I had a pleasant dinner with the favourite, though she told me
that, not having seen the duke, she could not tell me how he would take
my pleasantry, which her mother resented very much. This mother of hers,
a woman of the lowest birth, had become very proud since her daughter was
a prince's mistress, and thought my relationship a blot on their
escutcheon. She had the impudence to tell me that her relations had never
been players, without reflecting that it must be worse to descend to this
estate than to rise from it, if it were dishonourable. I ought to have
pitied her, but not being of