Don Orsino

in very serious injury to many of the strongest financial bodies in the country. Yet it is a fact worth recording that the general principle upon which affairs were conducted was an honest o

on of the scheme for beautifying the city had destroyed great numbers of dwellings in the most thickly populated parts, and more house-room was needed to

to advance him money on notes of hand, in small amounts at high interest, wherewith to build his house or houses. When the building was finished the bank took a first mortgage upon the property, the owner let the house, paid the interest on the mortgage out of the

d London lost faith in the paper, owing, in the first instance, to one or two small failures, and returned it upon Rome; the banks, unable to obtain cash for it at any price, and being short of ready money, could then no longer discount the speculator's furth

not necessary to go into further details, though of course c

played in it by the old land-holding families, a number of which were ruined in wild schemes which no sensible man of business w

e heir got everything, the other children got practically nothing but the smallest pittance. The palace, the gallery of pictures and statues, the l

ted by the testator amongst all his children. He may leave the other half to any o

tain length of time, and if the public has been admitted daily or on any fixed days, to visit them. It is not in the power of the Borghese, or t

one half amongst his children, though in point of fact they yield no income whatever. But it is of no use to d

possessions, which in reality yield him nothing or next to nothing. He also foresees that in the next generation the same state of things will

reditors can lay a finger upon the pictures, nor raise a centime upon them. This man, therefore, is permanently reduced to penury, and his creditors are large losers, while he is still de jure and de facto t

adlong into speculation, though possessing none of the qualities necessary for success, and only one of the requisites, namely, a certain amount of ready money, or free and convertible proper

e facts explained have a direct bearing upon the story I am

otism upon a very slight foundation, and had found persons willing to believe him a sufferer who had escaped martyrdom for the cause, and had deserved the crown of election to a constituency as a just reward of his devotion. The Romans cared very little what became of him. The old Blacks confounded Victor Emmanuel with Garibaldi, Cavour with Persiano, and Silvio Pellico with Del Ferice in one sweeping condemnation, desiring nothing so much as never to hear the hated names mentioned in their houses. The Grey party, being also Roman, disapproved of Ugo on general principles and particularly because he had been a spy, but the Whites, not being Romans at all and entertaining an especial detestation for every distinctly Roman opinion, received him at his own estimation, as society receives most people who live in good hou

ttached to him by a hatred of Giovanni Saracinesca almost as great as his own. She had followed him and had married him without hesitation; but she had kept the undivided possession of her fortune while allowing him a liberal use of her income. In return, she claimed a certain liberty of action when she chose to avail herself of it. She would not be bound in the choice of her acquaintances nor criticised in the measure of like or dislike she bestowed upon them. She was by no means wholly bad, and if she had a harmless fancy now and then, she required her husband to treat her as above suspicion. On the whole, the arrangement worked very well.

f his horror at the hard-heartedness shown by his partners. To prove his disinterested spirit it only need be said that on many occasions he had actually come forward as a private individual and had taken over the mortgage himself, distinctly stating that he could not hold it for more than a year, but expressing a hope that the debtor might in that time retrieve h

r side, and the instances of his prompt, decisive and successful action were many. He represented a small town in the Neapolitan Province, and the benefits and advantages he had obtained for it were numberless. The provincial high road had been made to pass through it; all express trains stopped at its station, though the passengers who made use of the inestimable privilege did not average twenty in the month; it possessed a Piazza Vittorio Emmanuela, a Corso Garibaldi, a Via Cavour, a public garden of at least a quarter of an ac

detached modern house in the new part of the city. The gilded gate before the little plot of garden, bore their intertwined initials, surmounted by a modest count's coronet. Donna Tullia would have prefe

ing-room, red damask in the hall and red carpets on the stairs. Some fine specimens of gilding were also to be seen, and Del Ferice had been one of the first to use electric light. Everything was new, expensive and polished to its extreme capacity for reflect

tention was divided between an important bank operation and a petition for his help in obtaining a decoration for the mayor of the town he represented. The claim to this distinction seemed to rest chiefly on the petitioner's

o a chair at his side-the one usually occupied at this hou

led to ask t

Donna Tullia. "I have a dreadful cold, of cours

s what you n

made me go to Carlsbad-I really do not know. But I have someth

accentuate the expression of his readiness to listen, he now

lee," said Donna Tulli

se you m

my seat among t

epeated Del Ferice with

ow it is not. Yet I have as good a righ

n you married me, my angel, you relinquished y

the kind. I never

ld make that clear

will not beg. You must get me the seat.

to one of the diplomatic

myself. I am a Roman lady and I will ha

see where I am to begin. It will need

e of the clerical deputies and say th

d t

ill vote for his next measure. Not

y at his wife's ideas of

all the clericals to read an account of the transaction in the Osservatore Romano. In any case, I am not sure that it will be much to our advant

impressions-" Donna Tullia sh

ight that you should go to this affair. If you go, you must go in the proper way. No doubt there will be pe

on the paper, provided I c

red Del Ferice. "I

t is the least you can do. The idea of getting a card that is not to be used i

ecial interest at stake and any other woman might have been satisfied with a seat in the diplomatic tribune, which could probably have been obtained without great difficulty. But she had heard that the seats there were to be very high and she did not really wish to be placed in too prominent a position. The light might be unfavourable, and

me valid reason for proposing him for the distinction. Ugo could not decide what to do just then, but he ultimately hit upon a successful plan. He advised his correspondent to write a pamphlet upon the rapid improvement of agricultural interests in his district under the existing ministry, and he even went so far as to enclose with his letter some notes on the subject. These notes proved to be so voluminous and complete that when the mayor had copied them he could not find a pretext for a

Within three days he had the promise of what he wanted. A certain lonely lady of high position lay very ill just then, and it need scarcely be explained that her confidential servant fell upon

ople slept in the lifts, on the landings, in the porters' lodges. The thrifty Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings. People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the suppli

ough the basilica will hold some eighty thousand people at a pinch, and the crowd on

h about the capital to keep her. She allowed herself to be driven about the town, on pretence of seeing churches and galleries, but in reality she saw very little of either. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts and subject to fits of abstraction. Most things seemed to her intensely dull, and the unhappy guide who had been selected to accompany her on her excursions, wasted his learning upon her on the first morning, and subsequently exhausted the magnificent catalogue of impossi

r the Jubilee," s

cket, as it happens. I bought it for twenty francs this morning, thinking that one of m

a glanced at th

imagine that I will stand? I wan

ogies, but explained that he c

ou for?" sh

ing, Donna Tullia herself was not more restless. She drove at once

Is it possible that yo

rd of me! I have not the s

ace is already secured. Fear nothing

ot unde

omes in and begins to talk about you. There is Madame d'Aragona wh

on Or

and you have only met once. But tell me

as that," said Madame d'Aragona, "Ho

has her cards for both, of course. She will only go once. If you

ar friend! Then I go as

Faustina Gouache inste

d'Aragona. It is not my name. I might as well call

on my cards," answered Gouache with a la

aria Consuelo

panish name,"

nd was an

cent, originally of

shall I sit for you? You

o's hour, but as he has not come, and

he pun

bominable dogs in pursuit of the feeb

expressed consi

aria Consuelo. "He ha

his element. If Providence meant man to work, it should have given him two heads, one for his profession and

an i

ads. Providence expects a man to do two things at once-an air from an opera and invent the steam-engine at the same moment. Nature rebels. Then Providence an

to Gouache's extraordina

oxical, or irreligiou

d a rifle at Mentana? No, M

oes tha

e it to the Church to define my other article

te of sincerity in the odd stateme

which belongs to the end

invented when I w

er to the coming age-the

, political, scientific and artistic," suggested Gouache.

mparing me to a sp

knows? Are you the typical

Maria Consuelo wi