“I was not; but after I had been some few years in Genoa, I began to grow weary of the pursuits of merchandise, and indeed to feel some of that pride of which I had accused my relations, and I thought that I should be satisfied with very little if I might be free from the occupation of the merchant; and while I was so thinking, I met by chance an old acquaintance who persuaded me to undertake the profession of arms, to which I was indeed not reluctant. And so I left my merchandise, and did not see Genoa again for nearly two years. It was then that I was so much interested in that scene which the picture portrays; for in a very small house which is in the same street, and directly opposite to that palace, there lived an old woman, whose name was.…” The attention of the old gentleman had been powerfully arrested by the commencement of the Italian’s narrative; and he listened very calmly till the narrator arrived at the point when he was about to mention the name of the old woman who lived opposite to the palace in question: then was Mr. Martindale again excited, and without waiting for the conclusion of the sentence, interrupted it by exclaiming: “Ah! what! do you know that old woman? Is she living? Where is she?--Stop--no--let me see--impossible!--Why I must be nearly seventy--yes--Are you sure? Is not her name Bianchi?” To this hurried and confused mass of interrogation, the Colonel replied that her name was Bianchi; but that she had died nearly twenty years ago, at a very advanced age, being at the time of her death nearly ninety years of age. Hearing this, the old gentleman assumed a great calmness and composure of manner, though he trembled as if in an ague; and turning to the astonished clergyman, who was pleasing himself with the anticipation of some catastrophe or anecdote which might form a fine subject for town-talk, he very deliberately said: “Mr. Denver, I beg I may not intrude any longer on your valuable time. This gentleman, I find, can give me some account of an old acquaintance of mine. The inquiries may not be interesting to you. Make my best compliments to Mrs. Denver.”