sad to say, to be the one small merit which the majority of the ladies willing to accept engagements at the palace did not possess. Day after day passed on; and the marquis's steward only found more and more difficulty in obtaining the appointed number of trustworthy beauties. At last his resources failed him altogether; and he appeared in his master's presence about a week before the night of the ball, to make the humiliating acknowledgment that he was entirely at his wits' end. The total number of fair shepherdesses with fair characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only to twenty-three.
'Nonsense!' cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward had made his confession. 'I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I mean to have. What's the use of shaking your head when all their dresses are ordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you scoundrel—and you have the impudence to offer me only twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word! I won't hear a word! Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place.' The marquis roared out this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and pointed peremptorily to the door.
The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his hat and cane, and went out. It was useless to look through the ranks of rejected volunteers again; there was not the slightest hope in that quarter. The only chance left was to call on all his friends in Pisa who had daughters out at service, and to try what he could accomplish, by bribery and persuasion, that way.
After a whole day occupied in solicitations, promises, and patient smoothing down of innumerable difficulties, the result of his efforts in the new direction was an accession of six more shepherdesses. This brought him on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine, and left him, at last, with only one anxiety—where was he now to find shepherdess number thirty?
He mentally asked himself that important question, as he entered a shady by-street in the neighborhood of the Campo Santo, on his way back to the Melani Palace. Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road, and fanning himself with his handkerchief after the oppressive exertions of the day, he passed a young girl who was standing at the street door of one of the houses, apparently waiting for somebody to join her before she entered the building.
'Body of Bacchus!' exclaimed the steward (using one of those old Pagan ejaculations which survive in Italy even to the present day), 'there stands the prettiest girl I have seen yet. If she would only be shepherdess number thirty, I should go home to supper with my mind at ease. I'll ask her, at any rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, and everything may be gained. Stop, my dear,' he continued, seeing the girl turn to go into the house as he approached her. 'Don't be afraid of me. I am steward to the Marquis Melani, and well known in Pisa as an eminently respectable man. I have something to say to you which may be greatly for your benefit. Don't look surprised; I am coming to the point at once. Do you want to earn a little money? honestly, of course. You don't look as if you were very rich, child.'
'I am very poor, and very much in want of some honest work to do,' answered the girl, sadly.
'Then we shall suit each other to a nicety; for I have work of the pleasantest kind to give you, and plenty of money to pay for it. But before we say anything more about that, suppose you tell me first something about yourself—who you are, and so forth. You know who I am already.'
'I am only a poor work-girl, and my name is Nanina. I have nothing more, sir, to say about myself than that.'
'Do you belong to Pisa?'
'Yes, sir—at least, I did. But I have been away for some time. I was a year at Florence, employed in needlework.'
'All by yourself?'
'No, sir, with my little sister. I was waiting for her when you came up.'
'Have you never done anything else but needlework? never been out at service?'
'Yes, sir. For the last eight months I have had a situation to wait on a lady at Florence, and my sister (who is turned eleven, sir, and can make herself very useful) was allowed to help in the nursery.'
'How came you to leave this situation?'
'The lady and her family were going to Rome, sir. They would have taken me with them, but they could not take my sister. We are alone in the world, and we never have been parted from each other, and never shall be—so I was obliged to leave the situation.'
'And here you are, back at Pisa—with nothing to do, I suppose?'
'Nothing yet, sir. We only came back yesterday.'
'Only yesterday! You are a lucky girl, let me tell you, to have met with me. I suppose you have somebody in the town who can speak to your character?'
'The landlady of this house can, sir.'
'And who is she, pray?'
'Marta Angrisani, sir.'
'What! the well-known sick-nurse? You could not possibly have a better recommendation, child. I remember her being employed at the Melani Palace at the time of the marquis's last attack of gout; but I never knew that she kept a lodging-house.'
'She and her daughter, sir, have owned this house longer than I can recollect. My sister and I have lived in it since I was quite a little child, and I had hoped we might be able to live here again. But the top room we used to have is taken, and the room to let lower down is far more, I am afraid, than we can afford.'
'How much is it?'
Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trembling. The steward burst out laughing.
'Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for a whole year at once?' he said.
Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.
'Suppose I offered you that?' continued the steward. 'And suppose I only ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve refreshments in a beautiful room to the company at the Marquis Melani's grand ball? What should
