at was not playing
that evening. A door led through the side wall into the second
compartment, which was a salone. The porter, in evening dress, was
introducing a married couple, also in evening dress, who had been invited
and were accompanied by their baby in the arms of the wet-nurse. This
compartment was divided by a partition with an open door through which
one saw an alcove, or back room, with a buffet loaded with sweets, cakes,
and ices, at which the guests were to refresh themselves as they passed.
At Ignazio's wedding footmen carried the refreshments about on trays. A
door in the side led to the third compartment, where children were
dancing to a toy piano with four real notes. I struck one and it
sounded. A lady doll was playing, and I looked at her music, but the
notes were too small for my eyes, so I asked our hostess what music it
was, and she replied that it was a selection from the _Geisha_. I
remembered then that there had recently been in the town a travelling
opera company performing that work which is so popular in Italy that one
often hears the boys whistling the airs in the streets. A surname is not
of much practical use in Sicily, and some of my friends have not mastered
mine, but by those who know it, and who also know that it is the same as
that of the composer of the _Geisha_, I have sometimes been credited with
the music of his opera, a compliment which it distresses me to be
compelled to decline. In the alcove behind were musicians playing
guitars. I did not strike a note on a guitar, feeling sure that it would
be out of tune with the piano.

A door in the side wall led to the fourth room, where S. Joachim was
entertaining four kings who wore their crowns. These kings have nothing
to do with Gaspare, Melchiorre, and Baldassare, who fall down and worship
the infant Jesus, opening their treasures and presenting unto him gifts,
gold and frankincense and myrrh, on the occasion of the Nativita. Those
three were led from the East to the manger at Bethlehem by the miraculous
star; these in Joachim's room came in response to the usual cards of
invitation sent by the family, just as the relations and guests came to
Ignazio's wedding. The Madonna had, I think my priest told me, forty
kings and sixty condottieri in her pedigree. Invitations had been issued
to all their descendants, and no doubt all had accepted, but, owing to
want of means on the part of the artist who made this Nascita and w