I promised to accompany him.  He shewed me several letters of recommendation for the best houses in Vicenza, and our departure was fixed for early the next morning.  I was at the “Star Hotel” by daybreak.  A carriage and four was ready; the hotel-keeper came up with his bill, and P——­ C——­ begged me to pay it.  The bill amounted to five sequins; four of which had been advanced in cash by the landlord to pay the driver who had brought them from Fusina.  I saw that it was a put-up thing, yet I paid with pretty good grace, for I guessed that the scoundrel had left Venice without a penny.  We reached Vicenza in three hours, and we put up at the “Cappello,” where P——­ C——­ ordered a good dinner before leaving me with the lady to call upon the manufacturers.

When the beauty found herself alone with me, she began by addressing friendly reproaches to me.

“I have loved you,” she said, “for eighteen years; the first time that I saw you we were in Padua, and we were then only nine years old.”

I certainly had no recollection of it.  She was the daughter of the antiquarian friend of M. Grimani, who had placed me as a boarder with the accursed Sclavonian woman.  I could not help smiling, for I recollected that her mother had loved me.

Shop-boys soon began to make their appearance, bringing pieces of goods, and the face of Madame C——­ brightened up.  In less than two hours the room was filled with them, and P——­ C——­ came back with two merchants, whom he had invited to dinner.  Madame allured them by her pretty manners; we dined, and exquisite wines were drunk in profusion.  In the afternoon fresh goods were brought in; P——­ C——­ made a list of them with the prices; but he wanted more, and the merchants promised to send them the next day, although it was Sunday.  Towards the evening several counts arrived, for in Vicenza every nobleman is a count.  P——­ C——­ had left his letters of recommendation at their houses.  We had a Count Velo, a Count Sesso, a Count Trento—­all very amiable companions.  They invited us to accompany them to the casino, where Madame C——­ shone by her charms and her coquettish manners.  After we had spent two hours in that place, P——­ C——­ invited all his new friends to supper, and it was a scene of gaiety and profusion.  The whole affair annoyed me greatly, and therefore I was not amiable; the consequence was that no one spoke to me.  I rose from my seat and went to bed, leaving the joyous company still round the festive board.  In the morning I came downstairs, had my breakfast, and looked about me.  The room was so full of goods that I did not see how P——­ C——­ could possibly pay for all with his six thousand florins.  He told me, however, that his business would be completed on the morrow, and that we were invited to a ball where all the nobility would be present.  The merchants with whom he had dealt came to dine with us, and the dinner was remarkable for its extreme profusion.