s than on
board ship.'

'You have an obedient crew,' said Sidonia, 'and that is much.'

'Yes; when they wake my children say their prayers, and then they come
to embrace me and their mother. This they have never omitted during
their lives. I have taught them from their birth to obey God and to
honour their parents. These two principles have made them a religious
and moral family. They have kept us united, and sustained us under
severe trials.'

'Yet such talents as you all possess,' said Sidonia, 'should have
exempted you from any very hard struggle, especially when united, as
apparently in your case, with well-ordered conduct.'

'It would seem that they should,' said Baroni, 'but less talents than we
possess would, probably, obtain as high a reward. The audiences that we
address have little feeling for art, and all these performances, which
you so much applauded last night, would not, perhaps, secure even the
feeble patronage we experience, if they were not preceded by some feats
of agility or strength.'

'You have never appealed to a higher class of audience?'

'No; my father was a posture-master, as his father was before him. These
arts are traditionary in our family, and I care not to say for what
length of time and from what distant countries we believe them to have
been received by us. My father died by a fall from a tight rope in the
midst of a grand illumination at Florence, and left me a youth. I count
now only sixty-and-thirty summers. I married, as soon as I could,
a dancer at Milan. We had no capital, but our united talents found
success. We loved our children; it was necessary to act with decision,
or we should have been separated and trampled into the mud. Then I
devised this house and wandering life, and we exist in general as you
see us. In the winter, if our funds permit it, we reside in some city,
where we educate our children in the arts which they pursue. The mother
can still dance, sings prettily, and has some knowledge of music. For
myself, I can play in some fashion upon every instrument, and have
almost taught them as much; I can paint, too, a scene, compose a
group, and with the aid of my portfolio of prints, have picked up more
knowledge of the costume, of different centuries than you would imagine.
If you see Josephine to-night in the Maid of Orleans you would perhaps
be surprised. A great judge, like yourself a real artist, once told me
at Bruxelles, that the grand opera could not prod