deserve, but to increase, his reputation for
oddity. He invented the most extravagant
disguises, to be worn by some of his more
intimate friends; he arranged grotesque
dances, to be performed at stated periods of
the evening by professional buffoons, hired
from Florence. He composed a toy symphony,
which included solos on every noisy plaything
at that time manufactured for children's use.
And, not content with thus avoiding the
beaten track in preparing the entertainments
at the ball, he determined also to show
decided originality, even in selecting the attendants
who were to wait on the company.
Other people in his rank of life were accustomed
to employ their own and hired footmen
for this purpose; the marquis resolved
that his attendants should be composed of
young women only; that two of his rooms
should be fitted up as Arcadian bowers; and
that all the prettiest girls in Pisa should be
placed in them to preside over the refreshments,
dressed, in accordance with the mock-
classical taste of the period, as shepherdesses
of the time of Virgil.

The only defect of this brilliantly new idea
was the difficulty of executing it. The
marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer
than thirty shepherdesses were to be engaged,
fifteen for each bower. It would have been
easy to find double this number in Pisa, if
beauty had been the only quality required in
the attendant damsels. But it was also
absolutely necessary, for the security of the
marquis's gold and silver plate, that the
shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks,
the very homely recommendation of a fair
character. This last qualification proved, it
is sad to say, to be the one small merit which
the majority of the ladies willing to accept
engagements at the palace, did not possess.
Day after day passed on; and the marquis's
steward only found more and more difficulty
in obtaining the appointed number of
trustworthy beauties. At last, his resources failed
him altogether; and he appeared in his
master's presence, about a week before the night
of the ball, to make the humiliating
acknowledgment, that he was entirely at his wits'
end. The total number of fair shepherdesses
with fair characters, whom he had been able
to engage, amounted only to twenty-three.

"Nonsense!" cried the marquis, irritably,
as soon as the steward had made his confession.
"I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I
mean to have. What's the use of shaking
your head, when all their dresses are ordered?
Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of
sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you
scoundrel—and you have the impudence to
offer me only twenty-three hands to hold
them. Not a word! I won't hear a word!
Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place."
The marquis roared out this last terrible
sentence at the top of his voice, and pointed
peremptorily to the door.

The steward knew his master too well to
remonstrate. He took his hat and cane, and
went out. It was useless to look through the
ranks of rejected volunteers again; there was
not the slightest hope in that quarter. The
only chance left was to call on all his friends
in Pisa who had daughters out at service,
and to try what he could accomplish, by
bribery and persuasion, that way.

After a whole day occupied in solicitations,
promises, and patient smoothing down of
innumerable difficulties, the result of his
efforts in the new direction, was an accession
of six more shepherdesses. This brought him
on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine,
and left him, at last, with only one anxiety
where was he now to find shepherdess number
thirty?

He mentally asked himself that important
question, as he entered a shady by-street in
the neighbourhood of the Campo Santo, on
his way back to the Melani Palace.
Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road,
and fanning himself with his handkerchief
after the oppressive exertions of the day, he
passed a young girl who was standing at the
street-door of one of the houses, apparently
waiting for somebody to join her before she
entered the building.

"Body of Bacchus!" exclaimed the steward
(using one of those old Pagan ejaculations
which survive in Italy even to the present
day). "There stands the prettiest girl I have
seen yet. If she would only be shepherdess
number thirty, I should go home to supper,
with my mind at ease. I'll ask her, at any
rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, and
everything may be gained. Stop, my dear,"
he continued, seeing the girl turn, to go into
the house, as he approached her. "Don't be
afraid of me. I am steward to the Marquis
Melani, and well known in Pisa as an
eminently respectable man. I have something to
say to you which may be greatly for your
benefit. Don't look surprised; I am coming
to the point at once. Do you want to earn a
little money?—honestly, of course. You
don't look as if you were very rich, child."

"I am very poor, and very much in want
of some honest work to do," answered the
girl, sadly.

"Then we shall suit each other to a nicety;
for I have work of the pleasantest kind to
give you, and plenty of money to pay for it.
But before we say anything more about that,
suppose you tell me first something about
yourself—who you are, and so forth. You.
know who I am already."

"I am only a poor work-girl, and my name
is Nanina. I have nothing more, sir, to say
about myself than that."

"Do you belong to Pisa?"

"Yes, sir—at least, I did. But I have
been away for some time. I was a year at
Florence, employed in needlework."

"All by yourself?"

"No, sir, with my little sister. I was
waiting for her when you came up."