ted in any way, but permitted
to prolong their stay to the latest period compatible with the
arrangement for sale. A sense of gratitude, too, mingled with these
feelings; for Mrs. Ricketts had never ceased to indite euphuistic
notes of inquiry after George himself,--send presents of impracticable
compounds of paste and preserves, together with bottles of mixtures,
lotions, embrocations, and liniments, one tithe of which would have
invalided a regiment Gronnsell, it is true, received these civilities in
a most unworthy spirit; called her "an old humbug," with a very unpolite
expletive annexed to it; and all but hurled the pharmacopoeia at the
head of the messenger. Still, he had other cares too pressing to suffer
his mind to dwell on such trifles; and when Onslow expressed a wish
that the family should not be disturbed in their occupancy, he merely
muttered, "Let them stay and be d-----d;" and thought no more of them.

Now, although the palace was, so to speak, dismantled, the servants
discharged, the horses sent to livery for sale, the mere residence was
convenient for Mrs. Ricketts. It afforded a favorable opportunity for a
general "doing up of the Villino Zoe,"--a moment for which all her late
ingenuity had not been able to provide. It opened a convenient occasion,
too, for supplying her own garden with a very choice collection of
flowers from the Mazzarini,--fuchsias, geraniums, and orchidae, being
far beyond all the inventoriai science of Morlache's men; and lastly, it
conferred the pleasing honor of dating all her despatches to her hundred
correspondents from the Palazzo Mazzarini, where, to oblige her dear
Lady Hester, she was still lingering,----"_Se sacrificando_" as she
delighted to express it, "_Jai doveri dell' amicizia_." To these cares
she had now vowed herself a martyr. The General believed in her sorrows;
Martha would have sworn to them; and not a whit the less sincerely that
she spent hours in secreting tulip roots and hyacinths, while a deeper
scheme was in perpetration,--no less than to substitute a copy of
a Gerard Dow for the original, and thus transmit the genius of the
Ricketts family to a late posterity. Poor Martha would have assisted in
a murder at her bidding, and not had a suspicion of its being a crime!

It was an evening "at home to her few most intimate friends," when
Mrs. Ricketts, using the privilege of an invalid, descended to the
drawing-room in a costume which united an ingenious compr