-all-honour career
to meet?"

"I went to school here, Signor Conte, and the Professor Grandi, in
whose house I always have lived, has taught me everything else I
know."

"What do you know?" inquired the count, so suddenly that Nino was
taken off his guard. He did not know what to answer. The count looked
very stern and pulled his moustaches. "You have not here come,"
he continued, seeing that Nino made no answer, "without knowing
something. Evident is it, that, although a man young be, if he nothing
knows, he cannot a professor be."

"You speak justly, Signor Conte," Nino answered at last, "and I do
know some things. I know the _Commedia_ of Alighieri, and Petrarca,
and I have read the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ with Professor Grandi, and
I can repeat all of the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the--"

"For the present that is enough," said the count. "If you nothing
better to do have, will you so kind be as to begin?"

"Begin?" said Nino, not understanding.

"Yes, signore; it would unsuitable be if I my daughter to the hands of
a man committed unacquainted with the matter he to teach her proposes.
I desire to be satisfied that you all these things really know."

"Do I understand, Signor Conte, that you wish me to repeat to you some
of the things I know by heart?"

"You have me understood," said the count severely, "I have all the
books bought of which you speak. You will repeat, and I will in the
book follow. Then shall we know each other much better."

Nino was not a little astonished at this mode of procedure, and
wondered how far his memory would serve him in such an unexpected
examination.

"It will take a long time to ascertain in this way--" he began.

"This," said the count coldly, as he opened a volume of Dante, "is the
celestial play by Signor Alighieri. If you anything know, you will it
repeat."

Nino resigned himself and began repeating the first canto of the
"Inferno." When he had finished it he paused.

"Forwards," said the count, without any change of manner.

"More?" inquired Nino.

"March!" said the old gentleman in military tone, and the boy went on
with the second canto.

"Apparently know you the beginning." The count opened the book at
random in another place. "The thirtieth canto of 'Purgatory.' You will
now it repeat."

"Ah!" cried Nino, "that is where Dante meets Beatrice."

"My hitherto not-by-any-means-extensive, but always from-the-conscience-
undertaken reading, reaches