I was extremely curious to know what the Pope had meant by “a mark of our singular affection.”  I was afraid that it would be a blessed rosary, with which I should not have known what to do.

When I got home I sent the book by Costa to the Vatican, and then I went to dine with Mengs.  While we were eating the soup the winning numbers from the lottery were brought in.  My brother glanced at them and looked at me with astonishment.  I was not thinking of the subject at that moment, and his gaze surprised me.

“Twenty-seven,” he cried, “came out fifth.”

“All the better,” said I, “we shall have some amusement out of it.”

I told the story to Mengs, who said,—­

“It’s a lucky folly for you this time; but it always is a folly.”

He was quite right, and I told him that I agreed with him; but I added that to make a worthy use of the fifteen hundred roman crowns which fortune had given me, I should go and spend fifteen days at Naples.

“I will come too,” said the Abbe Alfani.  “I will pass for your secretary.”

“With all my heart,” I answered, “I shall keep you to your word.”

I asked Winckelmann to come and eat polenta with the scopatore santissimo, and told my brother to shew him the way; and I then called on the Marquis Belloni, my banker, to look into my accounts, and to get a letter of credit on the firm at Naples, who were his agents.  I still had two hundred thousand francs:  I had jewellery worth thirty thousand francs, and fifty thousand florins at Amsterdam.

I got to Momolo’s in the dusk of the evening, and I found Winckelmann and my brother already there; but instead of mirth reigning round the board I saw sad faces on all sides.

“What’s the matter with the girls?” I asked Momolo.

“They are vexed that you did not stake for them in the same way as you did for yourself.”

“People are never satisfied.  If I had staked for them as I did for myself, and the number had come out first instead of fifth, they would have got nothing, and they would have been vexed then.  Two days ago they had nothing, and now that they have twenty-seven pounds apiece they ought to be contented.”

“That’s just what I tell their, but all women are the same.”

“And men too, dear countryman, unless they are philosophers.  Gold does not spell happiness, and mirth can only be found in hearts devoid of care.  Let us say no more about it, but be happy.”

Costa placed a basket containing ten packets of sweets, upon the table.

“I will distribute them,” said I, “when everybody is here.”

On this, Momolo’s second daughter told me that Mariuccia and her mother were not coming, but that they would send them the sweets.

“Why are they not coming?”

“They had a quarrel yesterday,” said the father, “and Mariuccia, who was in the right, went away saying that she would never come here again.”