rother?"

"Why, no, Ursula; why do you ask?"

"Because, brother, I was almost beginning to think that you meant
yourself."

"Myself, Ursula! I have no fine house to resign; nor have I money.
Moreover, Ursula, though I have a great regard for you, and though I
consider you very handsome, quite as handsome, indeed, as Meridiana in . . ."

"Meridiana! where did you meet with her?" said Ursula, with a toss of her
head.

"Why, in old Pulci's . . ."

"At old Fulcher's! that's not true brother. Meridiana is a Borzlam, and
travels with her own people, and not with old Fulcher, {306} who is a
gorgio and a basket-maker."

"I was not speaking of old Fulcher, but Pulci, a great Italian writer,
who lived many hundred years ago, and who, in his poem called the
'Morgante Maggiore,' speaks of Meridiana, the daughter of . . ."

"Old Carus Borzlam," said Ursula; "but if the fellow you mention lived so
many hundred years ago, how, in the name of wonder, could he know
anything of Meridiana?"

"The wonder, Ursula, is, how your people could ever have got hold of that
name, and similar ones. The Meridiana of Pulci was not the daughter of
old Carus Borzlam, but of Caradoro, a great pagan king of the East, who,
being besieged in his capital by Manfredonio, another mighty pagan king,
who wished to obtain possession of his daughter, who had refused him, was
relieved in his distress by certain paladins of Charlemagne, with one of
whom, Oliver, his daughter Meridiana fell in love."

"I see," said Ursula, "that it must have been altogether a different
person, for I am sure that Meridiana Borzlam would never have fallen in
love with Oliver. Oliver! why, that is the name of the curo-mengro who
lost the fight near the chong gav, {307} the day of the great tempest,
when I got wet through. No, no! Meridiana Borzlam would never have so
far forgot her blood as to take up with Tom Oliver."

"I was not talking of that Oliver, Ursula, but of Oliver, peer of France,
and paladin of Charlemagne, with whom Meridiana, daughter of Caradore,
fell in love, and for whose sake she renounced her religion and became a
Christian, and finally ingravidata, or cambri, by him:--

"E nacquene un figliuol, dice la storia,
Che dette a Carlo-man poi gran vittoria."

which means . . ."

"I don't want to know what it means," said Ursula; "no good, I'm sure.
Well, if the Meridiana of Charles's wain's pal was no handsomer than
Meridiana Borzlam, she was