Here was a scope for Mistress Margherita's eloquence! When it was exhausted, the good man Giovanni Andrea was called on to "speak as he ought" on the occasion. And he accordingly, we are told, "said some severe words." Even Elisabetta laughed at poor Lucia, and asked "how she could be so silly as to look after such a sorry knave?" Now, to poor Lucia this seems to have been the last drop in the cup; and she finally made up her mind to leave her place. Thereupon her master, who was just then confined to his bed by a fit of the gout, which interrupted his work at the easel from time to time, called her into his room and remonstrated with her. "Don't you see, ungrateful girl that you are," he said, "in what a condition you are leaving us? Here am I unable to leave my bed. Margherita is unwell. Barbara has the fever. And we have no one to help us." Lucia was inflexible. "Will you not wait till we have found another servant?" [Sidenote: LUCIA TRICKED.] "No, Signor, I cannot!" was the provoked girl's answer. "Go, then," rejoined her angry master, "wherever God may lead you!" But Giovanni Sirani could not reconcile it to his conscience to let the girl go forth unprotected into the city wholly left to her own devices. And the steps he took to prevent this are curiously illustrative of the manners of the time. He sent for two men, who were related to the girl; and privately arranged with them, that they should tell her they had found her an excellent place with a worthy family, to which they would at once conduct her. The unsuspecting Lucia departed accordingly; and was led by them to "the Hospital of St. Gregory, called the Beggar's Home," where she was forthwith shut up a prisoner! So that it should seem a master had the power to cause a girl guilty of nothing but having no home, to be thus imprisoned for her own protection: and yet that it was necessary to use a ruse to get her there! The Sirani family were a good deal surprised at Lucia's determination to leave them just at the time she did. For it wanted only a few days of the annual fair held on the 24th of August. And a considerable item in the value of her place consisted in the presents which it was the custom to give her on this occasion. In the first year of her service Dame Margherita had given her a muff, and Elisabetta a couple of pauls. The next year the mistress had given her a shift, and the Signorina a paul. And now, in the third year, she lost her fairings by abruptly going away just before the time when they were due.