"Ah! Signor Antonio, is that you?" exclaimed Mardocchi; "why what, in Fortune's name, brings you to Imola?" "Well met, father---father what is your name? for, by my faith, I have forgotten," cried Antonio, keeping his eye fixed upon him more firmly than Mardocchi altogether liked; "and what brings you to the Keys of St. Peter? I thought that taverns and public-houses were forbidden to your sacred calling except in time of travel." "Many things are forbidden that men do," replied Mardocchi, with a laugh; "and my sacred calling does not prevent my throat from getting dry. I came seeking a small flagon of the wine they have here, which is the best in Italy. Have you tasted it?" "Good faith! no," answered Antonio; "I thought not to find anything worth drinking in this small, dull place." "Then I will have a big flagon instead of a small one," rejoined Mardocchi, "and you shall share it with me. Here, drawer! drawer! bring me a big flagon of that same old Orvietto wine which I had when last I was here. You mistake much, Signor Antonio, both as to the wine and as to the place. It is no dull town, I can tell you, but as gay a city as any in Italy." "It will be gayer before we have done with it," replied Antonio, "for there are high doings where my lady is, and she will be here ere many days are over." "Indeed!" said Mardocchi; "but taste that wine, my son--taste that wine, and tell me if ever you drank better. Sour stuff we used to have where I passed my novitiate. They were strict in nothing but that, Antonio; but it was the rule of the order that the body must be mortified in some way, and they judged that the wine way was the safest; for, there being taverns not far off, a man might mend his drink when he went out to buy for the convent." "By my faith! it is good, indeed," said Antonio, after a deep draught; "if the meat be as good as the drink, we shall fare well." "Nowhere better," replied the friar; "woodcocks with bills that long, and breasts that thick" (and he demonstrated the measures on his arm and hand); "beef as fat and as juicy as if it had been cut out of an abbot's sirloin; fish from the Adriatic and the brook for Fridays; and now and then a wild-boar steak, which would make a hermit break Lent." "Well then, my lady will fare sumptuously, and I shall be spared scolding the purveyors, as I was obliged to do at Forli," was Antonio's reply. "But you speak only of your lady," remarked Mardocchi; "does not your lord come likewise?" "That I cannot tell," answered Antonio; "I only know that she comes first, and waits for him here, while he makes a tour through the legations. He thinks the air of Rome too cool for her health, and, as he is very careful of her, she comes hither." There was a sly humour in his speech which Mardocchi well understood; and he asked, "But why did he choose Imola for her residence; because he thought it was so dull, as you said just now?"