I received a note from Cardinal S. C.
inviting me to dinner, saying that he had just been bled, and that he
wanted to speak to me: he concluded by entreating me to come to him
early, even if I did not feel well.

The invitation was pressing; I could not guess what had caused it, but
the tone of the letter did not forebode anything unpleasant. I went to
church, where I was sure that Cardinal Acquaviva would see me, and he
did. After mass, his eminence beckoned to me.

"Are you truly ill?" he enquired.

"No, monsignor, I was only sleepy."

"I am very glad to hear it; but you are wrong, for you are loved.
Cardinal S. C. has been bled this morning."

"I know it, monsignor. The cardinal tells me so in this note, in which he
invites me to dine with him, with your excellency's permission."

"Certainly. But this is amusing! I did not know that he wanted a third
person."

"Will there be a third person?"

"I do not know, and I have no curiosity about it."

The cardinal left me, and everybody imagined that his eminence had spoken
to me of state affairs.

I went to my new Maecenas, whom I found in bed.

"I am compelled to observe strict diet," he said to me; "I shall have to
let you dine alone, but you will not lose by it as my cook does not know
it. What I wanted to tell you is that your stanzas are, I am afraid, too
pretty, for the marchioness adores them. If you had read them to me in
the same way that she does, I could never have made up my mind to offer
them." "But she believes them to be written by your eminence?"

"Of course."

"That is the essential point, monsignor."

"Yes; but what should I do if she took it into her head to compose some
new stanzas for me?"

"You would answer through the same pen, for you can dispose of me night
and day, and rely upon the utmost secrecy."

"I beg of you to accept this small present; it is some negrillo snuff
from Habana, which Cardinal Acquaviva has given me."

The snuff was excellent, but the object which contained it was still
better. It was a splendid gold-enamelled box. I received it with respect,
and with the expression of the deepest gratitude.

If his eminence did not know how to write poetry, at least he knew how to
be generous, and in a delicate manner, and that science is, at least in
my estimation, superior to the other for a great nobleman.

At noon, and much to my surprise, the beautiful marchioness made her
appearance in the most elegant morning toi