The weather was delicious. And as our crazy vehicle rattled over the disjointed pavement of the Appian way, among sandaled monks, lounging Jesuits, and herdsmen from the Campagna, a heart-sickness came over us which, in the instance of one, at least, of the party, has since settled down into a chronic _mal du pays_. We had been taking our last meal at the "_Trattoria Lepre_," where we had so often, after a hard day's work, feasted upon _cignale_ (wild boar), or something purporting so to be, surrounded by the bearded _pensionnaires_ of all the academies. Our Figaro-like attendant, who had served us daily for so many months, was more than commonly officious in the consciousness that the next morning we proposed to start for Naples. And, in fact, on the succeeding day at an early hour, an antediluvian vehicle, with chains and baskets slung beneath, drawn by three wild uncouth-looking animals, under the guidance of a good-for-nothing, half-bandit Trasteverino, in a conical hat and unwashed lineaments, might be seen emerging from the _Porta San Giovanni_, with their three _Excellenzas_ in the inside. The hearts of all three were too full for utterance--several miles we jogged on in silence, straining our eyes with last glimpses of St. Peter's, the Pantheon, and St. John Lateran. At Albano we proposed to breakfast; and, while the meal was being prepared and the horses being refreshed, we started for a walk to the Lake, familiar to all the party from previous visits. As we were seated on the bank, cigars in mouth, and as moody as might be, the Frenchman first endeavored to turn the current of our thoughts by speaking of Naples, which he alone of us knew. The effort was not particularly successful. But the Frenchman promised that when we resumed our journey, he would tell us a Neapolitan story, the effect of which, he hoped, would be to raise our spirits. After returning to the inn, and breakfasting upon those mysterious Italian cutlets, the thick breading upon which defies all satisfactory investigation into their original material, we resumed our journey. Legs dovetailed, and cigars relighted, the Frenchman thus commenced the story of CARLO CARRERA.