This was no more than a sign that he was highly pleased.  For my part delight fluttered the words in my mouth, so that I had to repeat half I uttered to the attentive ears of our gracious new friend and guide: 

‘Ah,’ she said, ’one does sthink one knows almost all before experiment.  I am ashamed, yet I will talk, for is it not so? experiment is a school.  And you, if you please, will speak slow.  For I say of you English gentlemen, silk you spin from your lips; it is not as a language of an alphabet; it is pleasant to hear when one would lull, but Italian can do that, and do it more—­am I right? soft?

‘Bella Vista, lovely view,’ said I.

‘Lovely view,’ she repeated.

She ran on in the most musical tongue, to my thinking, ever heard: 

‘And see my little pensioners’ poor cottage, who are out up to Lovely View.  Miles round go the people to it.  Good, and I will tell you strangers:  sthe Prince von Eppenwelzen had his great ancestor, and his sister Markgrafin von Rippau said, “Erect a statue of him, for he was a great warrior.”  He could not, or he would not, we know not.  So she said, “I will,” she said, “I will do it in seven days.”  She does constantly amuse him, everybody at de Court.  Immense excitement!  For suppose it!—­a statue of a warrior on horseback, in perfect likeness, chapeau tricorne, perruque, all of bronze, and his marshal’s baton.  Eh bien, well, a bronze horse is come at a gallop from Berlin; sthat we know.  By fortune a most exalted sculptor in Berlin has him ready,—­and many horses pulled him to here, to Lovely View, by post-haste; sthat we know.  But we are in extremity of puzzlement.  For where is the statue to ride him? where—­am I plain to you, sirs?—­is sthe Marshal Furst von Eppenwelzen, our great ancestor?  Yet the Markgrafin says, “It is right, wait!” She nods, she smiles.  Our Court is all at de lake-palace odder side sthe tower, and it is bets of gems, of feathers, of lace, not to be numbered!  The Markgrafin says—­sthere to-day you see him, Albrecht Wohlgemuth Furst von Eppenwelzen!  But no sculptor can have cast him in bronze—­not copied him and cast him in a time of seven days!  And we say sthis:—­Has she given a secret order to a sculptor—­you understand me, sirs, commission—­where, how, has he sthe likeness copied?  Or did he come to our speisesaal of our lake-palace disguised?  Oh! but to see, to copy, to model, to cast in bronze, to travel betwixt Berlin and Sarkeld in a time of seven days?  No! so-oh! we guess, we guess, we are in exhaustion.  And to-day is like an eagle we have sent an arrow to shoot and know not if he will come down.  For shall we see our ancestor on horseback?  It will be a not-scribable joy!  Or not?  So we guess, we are worried.  At near eleven o’clock a cannon fires, sthe tent is lifted, and we see; but I am impatient wid my breaths for de gun to go.’

I said it would be a fine sight.

’For strangers, yes; you should be of de palace to know what a fine sight! sthe finest!  And you are for Sarkeld?  You have friends in Sarkeld?’