d sang very
well, stayed to dinner. Therese had also asked a young Bolognese, named
Corticelli. I was struck with the budding charms of this pretty dancer,
but as I was just then full of Therese, I did not pay much attention to
her. Soon after we sat down I saw a plump abbe coming in with measured
steps. He looked to me a regular Tartuffe, after nothing but Therese. He
came up to her as soon as he saw her, and going on one knee in the
Portuguese fashion, kissed her hand tenderly and respectfully. Therese
received him with smiling courtesy and put him at her right hand; I was
at their left. His voice, manner, and all about him told me that I had
known him, and in fact I soon recognized him as the Abbe Gama, whom I had
left at Rome seventeen years before with Cardinal Acquaviva; but I
pretended not to recognize him, and indeed he had aged greatly. This
gallant priest had eyes for no one but Therese, and he was too busy with
saying a thousand soft nothings to her to take notice of anybody else in
the company. I hoped that in his turn he would either not recognize me or
pretend not to do so, so I was continuing my trifling talk with the
Corticelli, when Therese told me that the abbe wanted to know whether I
did not recollect him. I looked at his face attentively, and with the air
of a man who is trying to recollect something, and then I rose and asked
if he were not the Abbe Gama, with whose acquaintance I was honoured.

"The same," said he, rising, and placing his arms round my neck he kissed
me again and again. This was in perfect agreement with his crafty
character; the reader will not have forgotten the portrait of him
contained in the first volume of these Memoirs.

After the ice had been thus broken it will be imagined that we had a long
conversation. He spoke of Barbaruccia, of the fair Marchioness G----, of
Cardinal S---- C----, and told me how he had passed from the Spanish to
the Portuguese service, in which he still continued. I was enjoying his
talk about numerous subjects which had interested me in my early youth,
when an unexpected sight absorbed all my thinking faculties. A young man
of fifteen or sixteen, as well grown as Italians usually are at that age,
came into the room, saluted the company with easy grace, and kissed
Therese. I was the only person who did not know him, but I was not the
only one who looked surprised. The daring Therese introduced him to me
with perfect coolness with the words:--

"Tha