"Pray pardon me, signora, for disturbing you so early in the morning, and accept my thanks for your kindness in receiving me. My name is _Barbara Tempest_, and I am the daughter of an English nobleman who has been living in Florence for a short time. My parents are having me take music lessons, and I have already acquired some talent; but I had a most excellent teacher who has gone to Milan, and my parents want me now to take lessons of that stupid Tosani, who will disgust me with the art with his antiquated method and his absurd cadenzas. I have heard that Signor Lelio--whom I heard several times at Naples--was coming to this neighborhood, and that he had hired this house, the owner of which I know, for the season. I have an irresistible desire to take lessons of that famous singer, and I asked leave of my parents, who consented; but they have spoken about it to several people, and have been told that Signor Lelio is a man of a very proud and somewhat eccentric character, that, in addition, he is associated with what they call _charbonnerie_, I believe, that is to say he has taken an oath to exterminate all the rich and all the nobles, and that he detests them all. He doesn't miss an opportunity, so my father was told, to show his aversion to them, and if he ever, by any chance, consents to do them a service, to sing at their parties, or give lessons in their families, he doesn't do it until he has made them implore him in the most humble terms. If they prove to him, by very earnest appeals, how highly they esteem his talent and his person, he yields and becomes amiable; but if they treat him as an ordinary artist, he refuses sharply, and is not sparing of his mockery. This, signora, is what my parents have heard, and it is what they fear; for they are a little vain of their name and their social position. For my own part, I have no prejudices, and I have such profound admiration for talent, that there is no price that I would not pay to obtain from Signor Lelio the favor of being his pupil.