of her pranks.

"At last she quarrelled with her husband, and one evening ran away
to my house. I told her this would not do: she said she would lie
in the street, but not go back to him; that he beat her, (the
gentle tigress!) spent her money, and scandalously neglected her.
As it was midnight I let her stay, and next day there was no moving
her at all. Her husband came, roaring and crying, and entreating
her to come back:--_not_ she! He then applied to the police, and
they applied to me: I told them and her husband to _take_ her; I
did not want her; she had come, and I could not fling her out of
the window; but they might conduct her through that or the door if
they chose it. She went before the commissary, but was obliged to
return with that 'becco ettico,' as she called the poor man, who
had a phthisic. In a few days she ran away again. After a precious
piece of work, she fixed herself in my house, really and truly
without my consent; but, owing to my indolence, and not being able
to keep my countenance, for if I began in a rage, she always
finished by making me laugh with some Venetian pantaloonery or
another; and the gipsy knew this well enough, as well as her other
powers of persuasion, and exerted them with the usual tact and
success of all she-things; high and low, they are all alike for
that.

"Madame Benzoni also took her under her protection, and then her
head turned. She was always in extremes, either crying or laughing,
and so fierce when angered, that she was the terror of men, women,
and children--for she had the strength of an Amazon, with the
temper of Medea. She was a fine animal, but quite untameable. _I_
was the only person that could at all keep her in any order, and
when she saw me really angry (which they tell me is a savage
sight), she subsided. But she had a thousand fooleries. In her
fazziolo, the dress of the lower orders, she looked beautiful;
but, alas! she longed for a hat and feathers; and all I could say
or do (and I said much) could not prevent this travestie. I put the
first into the fire; but I got tired of burning them, before she
did of buying them, so that she made herself a figure--for they did
not at all become her.

"Then she would have her gowns with a _tail_--like a lady,
forsooth; nothing wo