“All the same, I must introduce you to her, for she may be a relation of yours.  Her name is the same; that is her father over there:” 

“M.  Casanova,” said she, speaking to a gentleman, “I beg to introduce to you M. Casanova, a friend of my father’s.”

“Really?  The same name; I wish, sir, you were my friend, as we are, perhaps, related.  I belong to the Naples branch.”

“Then we are related, though distantly, as my father came from Parma.  Have you your pedigree?”

“I ought to have such a thing, but to tell you the truth, I don’t think much of such matters.  Besants d’or and such heraldic moneys are not currency in a mercantile republic.”

“Pedigree-hunting is certainly a somewhat foolish pursuit; but it may nevertheless afford us a few minutes’ amusement without our making any parade of our ancestry.”

“With all my heart.”

“I shall have the honour of calling on you to-morrow, and I will bring my family-tree with me.  Will you be vexed if you find the root of your family also?”

“Not at all; I shall be delighted.  I will call on you myself to-morrow.  May I ask if you are a business man?”

“No, I am a financial agent in the employ of the French ministry.  I am staying with M. Pels.”

M. Casanova made a sign to his daughter and introduced me to her.  She was Esther’s dearest friend, and I sat down between them, and the concert began.

After a fine symphony, a concerto for the violin, another for the hautbois, the Italian singer whose repute was so great and who was styled Madame Trend made her appearance.  What was my surprise when I recognized in her Therese Imer, wife of the dancer Pompeati, whose name the reader may remember.  I had made her acquaintance eighteen years ago, when the old senator Malipiero had struck me because we were playing together.  I had seen her again at Venice in 1753, and then our pastime had been of a more serious nature.  She had gone to Bayreuth, where she had been the margrave’s mistress.  I had promised to go and see her, but C——­ C——­ and my fair nun M——­ M——­ had left me neither the time nor the wish to do so.  Soon after I was put under the Leads, and then I had other things to think about.  I was sufficiently self-controlled not to shew my astonishment, and listened to an aria which she was singing, with her exquisite voice, beginning “Eccoti giunta al fin, donna infelice,” words which seemed made for the case.

The applause seemed as if it would never come to an end.  Esther told me that it was not known who she was, but that she was said to be a woman with a history, and to be very badly off.  “She goes from one town to another, singing at all the public concerts, and all she receives is what those present choose to give her on a plate which she takes round.”

“Does she find that pay?”

“I should suspect not, as everyone has paid already at coming in.  She cannot get more than thirty or forty florins.  The day after to-morrow she will go to the Hague, then to Rotterdam, then back here again.  She had been performing for six months, and she is always well received.”