Would it be better to dismiss the _forestieri_ down below, who paid so good a rent for the _piano nobile_, and so make more room and a more seemly habitation--something more worthy of _her_? But then his foreign lodgers gave a very agreeable addition to his funds; and how could he do without that? or how adapt the villa for an English lady without spending of money which was impossible to him? When the vague raptures of a dawning love change into plans of intending matrimony, the difference is very great. Had he known how rich Diana was, the simple-minded Italian might have taken matters more easily perhaps than an Englishman would have approved of; but he was an Anglomane, and had picked up some reflections of English thoughts, which made him try anxiously now if there was any way by which he himself on his own finances could accomplish all this. And the question was grave, very grave, deepening the furrows on his forehead. When he paused from these reflections, and the first initial thought of all,--the idea that Diana--_Diana!_ loved him,--came back to his mind, Pandolfini’s heart recovered itself with a great throb of happiness beyond all imagining, an incredulous triumph of joy, which took away his breath. But then he fell back again into his anxieties, his questions. To realise this crown of all possible gladness and delight, what cares, what anxious self-discussions, what elaborate calculations must he go through! how could he make her life fair, and bright, and free from the pinchings which were in so many Italian houses, which he had learned by heart in his own life, and which, if they no longer existed for him now, might come back again were he to launch into greater expenditure and luxuries hitherto unknown? He sat up half the night pondering all these strange new thoughts, which were penetrated now and then as by a sudden golden arrow, by that flash of consciousness which made everything glow and shine. But this very consciousness, this ecstasy, was the occasion and beginning of the care. After he had deliberated and deliberated till his very brain ached, he took paper and a pen, and began to put down his calculations. The very act of doing so, putting this wonderful hope, so to speak, into black and white, and making his visionary preparations into a tangible thing which he could look at, thrilled him through and through again with touches of delight He leant back in his chair, and laughed softly, so softly that the low utterance was more like a tone upon an instrument than the commonplace happiness of laughter. To him, to come to _him!_ he who had never expected it, never hoped for it, since his first youth. Love! He was incredulous of it, yet believed in it to the bottom of his profound and passionate soul.