Of our extravagant mode of life, I'll only say that I don't think there was anything omitted which could contribute to ruin a moderate income. Splendid apartments, grand dinners, horses, carriages, servants, opera-boxes, bouquets, were all put in requisition to satisfy the young Countess that she was about to make a suitable alliance, and that any deficiencies observable in either our manners or breeding were fully compensated for by our taste in cookery and our tact in wine. To be plain, Tom, to obtain this young widow with four thousand a year, we had to pretend to be possessed of about four times as much. It was a regular game of "brag" we were playing, and with a very bad hand of cards! Hope led me on from day to day, trusting that each post would bring us the wished-for consent, and that at least a private marriage would ratify the compact Popes and cardinals, however, are too stately for fast movements, and at the end of five weeks we had n't, so far as I could see, gained an inch of ground! At one time his Holiness had gone off to Albano to bless somebody's bones, or the bones were coming to bless _him_, I forget which. At another, the King of Naples, fatigued with signing warrants for death and the galleys, desired to enjoy a little repose from public business. Cardinal Antonelli, hearing that we were Irish, got in a rage, and said that Ireland gave them no peace at all. And so it came to pass that the old thief--procrastination--was at his usual knavery; and for want of better, set to work to ruin poor Kenny Dodd! It is only fair to observe that, except Cary and myself, nobody manifested any great impatience at this delay; and even she, I believe, merely felt it out of regard to me. The others seemed satisfied to fare sumptuously every day; and assuredly the course of true love ran most smoothly along in rivulets of "mock turtle" and "potages à la fiancée." At last, Tom, I brought myself to book with the simple question, "How long can this continue? Will your capital stand it for a month, or even a week?" Before I attempted the answer, I sent for Mrs. D., to give her the honor of solving the riddle if she could. Our interview took place in a little crib they call my dressing-room, but which, I must remark to you, is a dark corner under a staircase, where the rats hold a parliament every night of the season. Mrs. D. was so shocked with the locality that she proposed our adjourning to her own apartment; and thither we at once repaired to hold our council.