heatre, for you cannot of course expect me to fill my
auditorium with police."

Marianna fixed her eyes steadily upon Nicolo's, and then said,
earnestly and gravely, "What do you say? That Michele and gendarmes
shall accompany us? Now I see plainly, Signor Nicolo, that you mean
honestly by us, and that my nasty suspicion is unfounded. Pray forgive
me my thoughtless words. And yet I cannot banish my nervousness and
anxiety about my dear uncle; I must still beg him not to take this
dangerous step."

Signor Pasquale had listened to all this conversation with such curious
looks as plainly served to indicate the nature of the struggle that was
going on within him. But now he could no longer contain himself; he
threw himself on his knees before his beautiful niece, seized her
hands, kissed them, bathed them with the tears which ran down his
cheeks, exclaiming as if beside himself, "My adored, my angelic
Marianna! Fierce and devouring are the flames of the passion which
burns at my heart Oh! this nervousness, this anxiety--it is indeed the
sweetest confession that you love me." And then he besought her not to
give way to fear, but to go and listen in the theatre to the finest
arias which the most divine of composers had ever written.

Nicolo too abated not in his entreaties, plainly showing his
disappointment, until Marianna permitted her scruples to be overcome;
and she promised to lay all fear aside and accompany the best and
dearest of uncles to the theatre outside the Porta del Popolo. Signor
Pasquale was in ectasies, was in the seventh heaven of delight. He was
convinced that Marianna loved him; and he now might hope to hear his
music on the stage, and win the laurel wreath which had so long been
the vain object of his desires; he was on the point of seeing his
dearest dreams fulfilled. Now he would let his light shine in perfect
glory before his true and faithful friends, for he never thought for a
moment but that Signor Splendiano and little Pitichinaccio would go
with him as on the first occasion.

The night that Signor Splendiano had slept in his wig near the Pyramid
of Cestius he had had, besides the spectres who ran away with him, all
sorts of sinister apparitions to visit him. The whole cemetery was
alive, and hundreds of corpses had stretched out their skeleton arms
towards him, moaning and wailing that even in their graves they could
not get over the torture caused by his essences and electuaries.
Accordingl