li, if you will promise me the protection of your ambassador;
but if you do not succeed in obtaining it for me in Rome, you will
undertake to repay me. Therefore you must give me an acknowledgement of
the debt."

"I have no objection." Every arrangement was speedily completed; I
received the money, paid my debts, and left Seraval with Stephano.

About one o'clock in the afternoon, we saw a wretched-looking house at a
short distance from the road, and the friar said, "It is a good distance
from here to Collefiorito; we had better put up there for the night." It
was in vain that I objected, remonstrating that we were certain of having
very poor accommodation! I had to submit to his will. We found a decrepit
old man lying on a pallet, two ugly women of thirty or forty, three
children entirely naked, a cow, and a cursed dog which barked
continually. It was a picture of squalid misery; but the niggardly monk,
instead of giving alms to the poor people, asked them to entertain us to
supper in the name of Saint-Francis.

"You must boil the hen," said the dying man to the females, "and bring
out of the cellar the bottle of wine which I have kept now for twenty
years." As he uttered those few words, he was seized with such a fit of
coughing that I thought he would die. The friar went near him, and
promised him that, by the grace of Saint-Francis, he would get young and
well. Moved by the sight of so much misery, I wanted to continue my
journey as far as Collefiorito, and to wait there for Stephano, but the
women would not let me go, and I remained. After boiling for four hours
the hen set the strongest teeth at defiance, and the bottle which I
uncorked proved to be nothing but sour vinegar. Losing patience, I got
hold of the monk's batticaslo, and took out of it enough for a plentiful
supper, and I saw the two women opening their eyes very wide at the sight
of our provisions.

We all ate with good appetite, and, after our supper the women made for
us two large beds of fresh straw, and we lay down in the dark, as the
last bit of candle to be found in the miserable dwelling was burnt out.
We had not been lying on the straw five minutes, when Stephano called out
to me that one of the women had just placed herself near him, and at the
same instant the other one takes me in her arms and kisses me. I push her
away, and the monk defends himself against the other; but mine, nothing
daunted, insists upon laying herself near me; I get u