RICCABOCCA, with a smile.--"So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!" MRS DALE, distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape charge.--"Not won yet; and it is strange!--she will have a very pretty fortune." RICCABOCCA.--"Ah!" MRS DALE.--"Six thousand pounds, I daresay--certainly four." RICCABOCCA, suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address.--"If Mrs Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!" The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sate himself down beside the whist-players. Mrs Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended.--"It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly. "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing, that night, in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single-blessedness--"Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably six thousand pounds--certainly of four thousand." "_Cosa meravigliosa!_" exclaimed Jackeymo--"miraculous thing!" and he crossed himself with great fervour. "Six thousand pounds English! why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for nothing?" "Nothing! no!" "These mercenary English!--the Government wants to bribe you." "That's not it." "The priests want you to turn heretic." "Worse than that," said the philosopher. "Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!" "Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear _these_ again!" "Never to wear what?" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers--"never to wear--" "The breeches," said Riccabocca laconically. "The barbarians!" faltered Jackeymo. "My nightcap!--and never to have any comfort in this," said Riccabocca, drawing on the cotton head-gear; "and never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to the four-posted bed. "And to be a bondsman and a slave," continued Riccabocca, waxing wroth; "and to be wheedled and purred at, and pawed, and clawed, and scolded, and fondled, and blinded, and deafened, and bridled, and saddled--bedevilled and--married." "Married!" said Jackeymo, more dispassionately--"that's very bad, certainly; but more than a hundred and fifty thousand _lire_, and perhaps a pretty young lady, and"-- "Pretty young lady!" growled Riccabocca, jumping into bed and drawing the clothes fiercely over him. "Put out the candle, and get along with you--do, you villanous old incendiary!" CHAPTER IX.