ave buried them all--all! It is a pleasant house enough, and gives good
custom. Are you alone?"

"At present, yes."

"Shew us where you sleep, that we may know where to come for you. You
won't want us these three days, I see."

"Ye are pleasant welcomers!" said Adrian;--"but listen to me. Can ye
find the living as well as bury the dead? I seek one in this city who,
if you discover her, shall be worth to you a year of burials!"

"No, no! that is out of our line. As well look for a dropped sand on the
beach, as for a living being amongst closed houses and yawning vaults;
but if you will pay the poor gravediggers beforehand, I promise you, you
shall have the first of a new charnel-house;--it will be finished just
about your time."

"There!" said Adrian, flinging the wretches a few pieces of
gold--"there! and if you would do me a kinder service, leave me, at
least while living; or I may save you that trouble." And he turned from
the room.

The Becchino who had been spokesman followed him. "You are generous,
Signor, stay; you will want fresher food than these filthy fragments.
I will supply thee of the best, while--while thou wantest it. And
hark,--whom wishest thou that I should seek?"

This question arrested Adrian's departure. He detailed the name, and
all the particulars he could suggest of Irene; and, with sickened heart,
described the hair, features, and stature of that lovely and hallowed
image, which might furnish a theme to the poet, and now gave a clue to
the gravedigger.

The unhallowed apparition shook his head when Adrian had concluded.
"Full five hundred such descriptions did I hear in the first days of the
Plague, when there were still such things as mistress and lover; but
it is a dainty catalogue, Signor, and it will be a pride to the poor
Becchino to discover or even to bury so many charms! I will do my best;
meanwhile, I can recommend you, if in a hurry, to make the best use of
your time, to many a pretty face and comely shape--"

"Out, fiend!" muttered Adrian: "fool to waste time with such as thou!"

The laugh of the gravedigger followed his steps.

All that day did Adrian wander through the city, but search and question
were alike unavailing; all whom he encountered and interrogated seemed
to regard him as a madman, and these were indeed of no kind likely
to advance his object. Wild troops of disordered, drunken revellers,
processions of monks, or here and there, scattered individuals glidin