9] and then turned into the Via
Bergognona. At length he stopped before a little house with only a
couple of windows, inhabited by a poor widow and her two daughters.
This women had taken him in for little pay the first time he came to
Rome, an unknown stranger noticed of nobody; and so he hoped again to
find a lodging with her, such as would be best suited to the sad
condition in which he then was.

He knocked confidently at the door, and several times called out his
name aloud. At last he heard the old woman slowly and reluctantly
wakening up out of her sleep. She shuffled to the window in her
slippers, and began to rain down a shower of abuse upon the knave who
was come to worry her in this way in the middle of the night; her
house was not a wine-shop, &c., &c. Then there ensued a good deal of
cross-questioning before she recognised her former lodger's voice; but
on Salvator's complaining that he had fled from Naples and was unable
to find a shelter in Rome, the old dame cried, "By all the blessed
saints of Heaven! Is that you, Signor Salvator? Well now, your little
room up above, that looks on to the court, is still standing empty, and
the old fig-tree has pushed its branches right through the window and
into the room, so that you can sit and work like as if you was in a
beautiful cool arbour. Ay, and how pleased my girls will be that you
have come back again, Signor Salvator. But, d'ye know, my Margarita's
grown a big girl and fine-looking? You won't give her any more rides on
your knee now. And--and your little pussy, just fancy, three months ago
she choked herself with a fish-bone. Ah well, we all shall come to the
grave at last. But, d'ye know, my fat neighbour, who you so often
laughed at and so often painted in such funny ways--d'ye know, she
_did_ marry that young fellow, Signor Luigi, after all. Ah well! _nozze
e magistrati sono da dio destinati_ (marriages and magistrates are made
in heaven) they say."

"But," cried Salvator, interrupting the old woman, "but, Signora
Caterina, I entreat you by the blessed saints, do, pray, let me in, and
then tell me all about your fig-tree and your daughters, your cat and
your fat neighbour--I am perishing of weariness and cold."

"Bless me, how impatient we are," rejoined the old dame; "_Chi va piano
va sano, chi va presto more lesto_ (more haste less speed, take things
cool and live longer), I tell you. But you are tired, you are cold;
where are the keys? quick with t