excuse, merely saying that they would have the field quite free to themselves, as she was leaving on the following day for Naples. And thither she went, taking the sea-journey from Marseilles. For travelling companion, she had the Chevalier de Méri. This gentleman who had been one of the guests of Monsieur Vicariville had a sister who was married to a Spanish Grandee, to whom was promised the viceroyalty of Naples. Monsieur de Méri was in every way far more desirable as a companion than the man she had left in the company of Françoise, to whom she also entrusted the _ménage_ in the rue des Tournelles, only making the condition that she and Villarceaux should hold their sweet converse exclusively in the “Yellow Chamber,” which was the most retired of the rooms. Finding this a little restrictive however, they betook themselves to Brie-Comte Robert, where they spent a fortnight at the house of a cousin of the marquis, who possessed the gift of a still tongue. Arrived in Naples, Ninon established herself with her faithful servant Perrote, who had attended her _en courrier_, in a small house near the park, and yielded herself up to the charm of the place. “See Naples and die,” but it thrilled Ninon with new life. The sunshine, the colour, the curious mingling of indolence and the activity of a seaport, the cloudless azure overhead, the clear blue depths of the bay, the islands washed by the sparkling waters, Vesuvius, calm and treacherous, enchanted her. She lost no time in providing herself with a Neapolitan costume, in which she roved about as the will took her. Nothing was more likely than that when she chartered a barque to sail away and dream her dreams, rocked by the gentle waves of that inland sea, it should have been guided by a young fisherman of some five-and-twenty years old. His handsome features wore a nobility of expression and energy—a picture worthy of a painter’s brush, with his sunburnt skin and flashing dark eyes, and dark locks, surmounted by his red woollen cap. This young fisherman, who told Ninon, when she asked him his name, that it was Aniello—Tommaso Aniello—but the people and his comrades called him “Masaniello.” Forever a favourite with them, they were in those early July days of that year of 1647 beginning to idolise him as their champion and leader in the revolt against the oppression and robbery of their Spanish masters.