he to the abbe, "you did not tell him whose house it is?"

"I did not think it necessary, her father and mother rarely shew
themselves."

"Well, it's of no consequence."

"But what is her father?" I asked, "the hangman, perhaps?"

"Worse, he's the 'bargello', and you must see that a stranger cannot be
received into good society here if he goes to such places as that."

Chiaccheri looked rather hurt, and I thought it my duty to say that I
would not go there again till the eve of my departure.

"I saw her sister once," said the marchioness; "she is really charmingly
pretty, and it's a great pity that with her beauty and irreproachable
morality she should be condemned to marry a man of her father's class."

"I once knew a man named Coltellini," I replied; "he is the son of the
bargello of Florence, and is poet-in-ordinary to the Empress of Russia. I
shall try to make a match between him and Fortuna's sister; he is a young
man of the greatest talents."

The marchioness thought my idea an excellent one, but soon after I heard
that Coltellini was dead.

The 'bargello' is a cordially-detested person all over Italy, if you
except Modena, where the weak nobility make much of the 'bargello', and
do justice to his excellent table. This is a curious fact, for as a rule
these bargellos are spies, liars, traitors, cheats, and misanthropes, for
a man despised hates his despisers.

At Sienna I was shewn a Count Piccolomini, a learned and agreeable man.
He had a strange whim, however, of spending six months in the year in the
strictest seclusion in his own house, never going out and never seeing
any company; reading and working the whole time. He certainly did his
best to make up for his hibernation during the other six months in the
year.

The marchioness promised she would come to Rome in the course of the
summer. She had there an intimate friend in Bianconi who had abandoned
the practice of medicine, and was now the representative of the Court of
Saxony.

On the eve of my departure, the driver who was to take me to Rome came
and asked me if I would like to take a travelling companion, and save
myself three sequins.

"I don't want anyone."

"You are wrong, for she is very beautiful."

"Is she by herself?"

"No, she is with a gentleman on horseback, who wishes to ride all the way
to Rome."

"Then how did the girl come here?"

"On horseback, but she is tired out, and cannot bear it any longer. The
gentleman has o