bred, very modest, very diligent, very pious, moderately
handsome.'--My dear boy, if you want to sit down, by all means say so.
We will sit together here.--'The name she goes by with those who know
her is Bellaroba.'--Bellaroba, indeed! Well--'I am very sure that you
will have no reason to regret my excellent choice on your behalf; and it
is the more timely because I learn from Fazio that one of your women has
fallen sick of the small-pox'--and so on. The Count is occasionally
sublime. I like particularly the list of the young lady's qualifications
and the reference to his own kindness to myself. Now, what am I to say?
I see you are puzzled. Well, I will give you time."

What Angioletto himself was to say is more to the purpose. I think it
much to his credit that his first ascertainable emotion after the buffet
of assault was one of wildest exultation at the prospect. It shows that
he had never for a moment distrusted the meek little partner of his
fortunes. Whisps of such doubt did afterwards float across his pretty
morning picture, but he put them away at once. Next came worldly wisdom.
True Tuscan that he was, his instinct was to decline perilous rapture if
waiting might bring it on easy terms. For a long time he weighed instant
joy against policy. Finally, as he was more Italian than Tuscan, and
more boy than either, he decided to jump the danger. The vision of
Bellaroba shy in the rose-garden, of himself crowning her soft hair,
bending over her, kissing her upturned face; of the Countess behind one
thicket looking for him, and the Count behind another looking for
Bellaroba--it was too much to resist!

"Madama," he said, "it is hardly for me to advise in such delicate
matters. I should not, by right, dare say what I am about to say upon
your invitation. Yet if I were his nobility, Count Guarino Guarini, not
the least of my pleasant moments would be that in which I could say, 'I
have a noble lady to wife, for she honours me as I have honoured her.'"

That was a very dextrous remark, vastly pleasing to the Countess. She
kissed the speaker then and there, wrote her letter hot-head, talked
about it all that day, and worked herself into such a fever of curiosity
that she cut short her villeggiatura by six weeks, so as the sooner to
see the girl who could inspire her with such admirable ideas of her own
magnanimity. She even grew quite enthusiastic upon her husband's
account, almost sentimental about him. This much the w