course of three weeks I had made a great number of
valuable acquaintances. I thought seriously of seeking employment in
Spain, as not having heard from Lisbon I dared not go there on the chance
of finding something to do. I had not received any letters from Pauline
of late, and had no idea as to what had become of her.

I passed a good many of my evenings with a Spanish lady, named Sabatini,
who gave 'tertullas' or assemblies, frequented chiefly by fifth-rate
literary men. I also visited the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, a well-read and
intelligent man, to whom I had been presented by Don Domingo Varnier, one
of the gentlemen of the king's chamber, whom I had met at Mengs's house.
I paid a good many visits to Donna Ignazia, but as I was never left alone
with her these visits became tiresome. When I suggested a party of
pleasure with her and her cousins, she replied that she would like it as
much as I, but as it was Lent and near Holy Week, in which God died for
our salvation, it was more fit to think of penance than pleasure. After
Easter, she said, we might consider the matter. Ignazia was a perfect
example of the young Spanish devotee.

A fortnight after, the King and Court left Madrid for Aranjuez. M. de
Mocenigo asked me to come and stay with him, as he would be able to
present me at Court. As may be imagined, I should have been only too glad
to accept, but on the eve of my departure, as I was driving with Mengs, I
was suddenly seized with a fever, and was convulsed so violently that my
head was dashed against the carriage window, which it shivered to
fragments. Mengs ordered the coachman to drive home, and I was put to
bed. In four hours I was seized with a sweating fit, which lasted for ten
or twelve hours. The bed and two mattresses were soaked through with my
perspiration, which dripped on to the floor beneath. The fever abated in
forty-eight hours, but left me in such a state of weakness that I was
kept to my bed for a whole week, and could not go to Aranjuez till Holy
Saturday. The ambassador welcomed me warmly, but on the night I arrived a
small lump which I had felt in the course of the day grew as large as an
egg, and I was unable to go to mass on Easter Day.

In five days the excrescence became as large as an average melon, much to
the amazement of Manucci and the ambassador, and even of the king's
surgeon, a Frenchman who declared he had never seen the like before. I
was not alarmed personally, for, as I suff