I was perfectly adapted to that honorable post. I was a genuine child of the lagoons, of fair complexion, ruddy-cheeked, very strong, with a somewhat feminine figure, my head and feet and hands being remarkably small, my chest broad and muscular, my arms and neck white and round and sinewy. Add to this, amber-colored hair, fine and abundant, and naturally curly; imagine a charming costume, half Figaro and half Cherubino, legs generally bare, sky-blue trunk hose kept up by a scarlet silk sash, and the breast covered simply by a shirt of embroidered linen, whiter than snow; then you will have an idea of the poor actor in embryo who was called in those days Nello, by contraction of his true name, Daniele Gemello. As it is the fate of small dogs to be petted by idiotic masters and beaten by jealous servants, the ordinary lot of those in my position was a mixture of unbounded tolerance on the part of the former, and of brutal hatred on the part of the latter. Luckily for me, Providence cast my lines in a blessed spot: Bianca Aldini was the incarnation of kindness, indulgence, and charity. Widowed at twenty, she passed her life helping the poor and comforting the afflicted. Where there were tears to be wiped away, or alms to be bestowed, you would soon see her hurrying thither in her gondola, with her little four-year-old daughter in her lap; a fascinating miniature, so tiny, so pretty, and always so daintily dressed that it seemed as if her mother's lovely hands alone, in all the world, were soft and gentle and tapering enough to touch her without crushing or bruising her. Signora Aldini herself was always dressed with a taste and elegance which all the other ladies in Venice tried in vain to equal; she was immensely rich, loved luxury, and spent half of her income in the gratification of her artistic tastes and her patrician habits. The other half went in almsgiving, in favors bestowed, in benefactions of every sort. Although that was a sufficiently generous _widow's mite_, as she called it, she artlessly accused herself of lacking energy, of not doing all that she ought; and, being moved to repentance rather than pride by her charity, she determined every day that she would leave society and devote herself to her own salvation. From this mixture of feminine weakness and Christian virtue you can see that she had not a strong mind, and that her intelligence was no more enlightened than the period and the social circle in which she lived demanded. For all that, I do not know that a better or more delightful woman ever lived. Other women, jealous of her beauty, her wealth and her virtue, avenged themselves by declaring that she was narrow-minded and ignorant. There was some truth in that charge, but Bianca was a most lovable woman, none the less. She had a reserve stock of common sense which prevented her from ever being ridiculous; and as for her lack of education, the ingenuous modesty which resulted from it was an additional charm.