"I have very often said to myself that if I could only have an opportunity to speak to him, he certainly would grant my request. But not only am I not likely to have an opportunity to meet him, but it would not be proper for a young woman to accost a young man. I was thinking about it this morning as I was riding. In my country, you know, signora, young ladies go out alone, and ride out attended by their servants. So I ride early in the morning, to avoid the heat of the day, which seems very terrible to us northern people. As I was passing this pretty house, I asked a servant whom it belonged to. When I learned that it was Count Nasi's, who is a friend of my family, I asked if Signor Lelio had arrived, knowing that the count had let it to him. 'Not yet,' was the reply; 'but his wife came on ahead to prepare the house for him; she is a very kind and beautiful lady.' Thereupon, signora, it came into my head to call upon you and interest you in my desire, so that you might give me the benefit of your powerful influence with your husband, and induce him to grant the request of my parents when they present it. May I ask you also, signora, to be kind enough to keep my little secret and to ask Signor Lelio to do the same? for my family would blame me severely for taking this step, although it is, as you see, perfectly innocent." She pronounced this harangue with such genuinely British volubility, jerking out her words, cutting short the long syllables, and drawling over the short ones, her Anglicisms were so natural and amusing, that I no longer believed that prudish yet reckless young lady to be Alezia. Checchina, for her part, thought of nothing but making merry over her eccentric performance. I would gladly have retired, as I was hardly in a mood to enjoy that amusement; but the slightest sound would have betrayed my presence and struck terror to Miss Barbara's guileless heart. "Really, miss," Checchina replied, concealing a strong desire to laugh behind a phial of essence of rose, "your request is most embarrassing, and I don't know how to answer it. I will admit that I have not the influence over Signor Lelio which you are pleased to attribute to me." "Can it be that you are not his wife?" inquired the young Englishwoman artlessly. "Oh! miss, to think of a young lady having such ideas!" exclaimed Checchina assuming a prudish air that sat most awkwardly upon her. "Fie, fie! Does custom permit young ladies in England to make such suppositions?" Poor Barbara was altogether bewildered. "I do not know whether my question was insulting," she rejoined in a trembling but resolute voice; "I certainly did not so intend it. You could not live with Signor Lelio without committing a crime unless you were his wife. You might, perhaps, be his sister--That is all I wanted to say, signora." "And might I not be neither his wife, nor his sister, nor his mistress, but be living in my own house? May I not be Countess Nasi?"