"Ah, il signore vuole una moglie ?" (the signore wants a wife?).

"Five, signorina.

I am looking for them now.

country we all have five wives."

In my

"Cinque moglie !" (five women!), and her big eyes growing bigger, she turned and fled as from a monster.

From the way she met that polygamous idea, I imagine Mormonism would not prosper in Italy.

That little girl spread the news through the village, and wherever I appeared on the streets a mob of boys and girls followed and stared at me, and now and then one would cry out,

"Cinque moglie--lei vuole cinque moglie !" (brutal — five women! he wants five women; he is brutal !).

I took care after that to talk no more nonsense to the little peasant girls.

CHAPTER VIII.

ITALIAN HIGH LIFE.-A CALL ON OUIDA.-TAKEN FOR A THIEF ON THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA.

A FRIEND of mine lived in Florence, an American lady. She had married a nobleman and lived in considerable style. It was out of the question to call upon her in my workman's garb; so, going to a fashionable tailor on the Via Calzaioli, I left my measure, and for the modest sum of six dollars obtained a very good and stylish-looking suit.

es.

I learned from my friend a good deal about the upper classTheir lack of energy and willingness to drift surprises an American. An American, no matter how great his wealth, works. It is the work he likes. He would be unhappy with nothing to do. Not so with the Italian. His ideal life is where there is nothing to be done. An Italian of wealth lies in bed until ten or eleven in the morning, alternately sipping coffee and dozing. From eleven until two he amuses himself with his toilet, with papers, correspondence; then luncheon. At three or four he goes out for a drive upon the Cascine; at six or seven he dines. The evening is passed at balls, operas, or private salons. In this idle round he passes away his existence. The Cascine, a beautiful drive along the Arno, is the scene of the Florentine's match-making. Mothers with marriageable daughters drive out here in the afternoon. The carriage stops for madame to sip an ice or to gaze at the sluggish flowing of the Arno's waters. The gay gallants pass by, cast soft glances at la bella signorina with the dark eyes; the next day signor papa is visited, the next week or month they are married. That is the Italian style. The young people never know

each other until after the wedding-day; then they know each other sometimes too well.

An officer of the army cannot marry unless possessed of at least forty thousand lire ($8000), which he must deposit with the War Department, drawing therefrom four per cent. interest for the benefit of his family. The pay of a captain is one dollar a day, which might suffice did he not have to bear out of his own pocket the expenses of servant, horse, rent, rations, and uniform.

The Italian villa is usually square in shape, containing two halls intersecting each other at right angles. The lower floor is used for the sleeping and dining rooms; the living-rooms, parlors, reception-rooms are up-stairs. A handsome villa, with garden, furniture, and everything ready for immediate occupancy, may be rented in the suburbs of Florence for two hundred and fifty lire (fifty dollars) per month. A landau, two horses, and man in livery to drive, costs three hundred and fifty lire; or if only one horse, three hundred lire per month. A woman cook is paid thirty lire, a man cook fifty lire per month. Supplies are bought from day to day in small quantities-five cents' worth of rice at a time, eggs by the half-dozen. Apples, strawberries, cherries, potatoes, etc., are bought by the pound, bread by the yard, pins by the ounce. Sweet potatoes come from Africa, and are bought by the pound.

"For sixty lire per month," said my friend, "I get a man cook, a regular chef de cuisine. I have literally no responsibility. Every evening he sends me a bill of fare for the next day. I approve or make alterations as the case may be. The next day we dine as arranged, à la carte. It is usual to make a certain allowance for the table, and you tell your cook to furnish the best bill of fare possible within that sum. Ten lire (two dollars) a day is a very liberal estimate for a family of five."

The cost of high life in Italy appears to be considerably less than in America. For a family of five the figures would stand thus:

One hundred and eighty-four dollars a month for a fashionable home, carriage and horses, three servants, and a liberal table—the same living in America would cost treble that sum.

Ouida, the well-known novelist, lives in a charming villa in the suburbs of Florence, just without the Porta San Frediano. I sent her a letter from the American consul, accompanied by this note of my own:

"FLORENCE, May 10, 1885.

"As one of the many Americans who read your works and admire your genius, I am desirous of calling and paying my respects. May I not hope to be accorded this honor? "With respect,

"To Mme. DE LA Rame,

"LEE MERIWETHER.

Villa Farinola, Via di Scandicci."

"Of course she will see you," said my friend, when I showed

her a copy of this note.

66

"Ouida is very vain, and would see anybody who wrote like this-'her works and genius.' But what is this?" getting down to the address-“ Madame De la Rame? That settles it."

"Settles it! How?" I queried.

"Settles it that you will never see Ouida. You have wounded her in her most sensitive part. 'Madame'-why, she will never forgive you."

"But is she not 'madame?' not married?"

Certainly not. But I will tell you all about it ;" and resuming my seat, I listened to the story of Madame, or Mademoiselle, De la Rame, a story as romantic as any of her novels.

A number of years ago, when she first came to Florence, bc

fore her peculiar views and eccentricities were known, she was received into Florentine society, and a certain marquis paid her attentions. The affair had made considerable progress. Even the trousseau, it is said, was prepared. By this time the eccentricity of Ouida's character had begun to dawn upon the noble marquis. When questioned one day by his Dulcinea, he determined once for all to end the romance.

"Did you think I was in earnest ?" he said, and turned away. Ouida gave him one of those stony stares so often described in her novels, and forthwith bought a pistol and announced her intention of shooting the marquis on sight. The better and the sooner to get a sight-she had a presentiment that the marquis would not call again-she secured the villa adjoining the residence of her ex-suitor, and for six months kept a strict vigil, pistol in hand, with the gory purpose of putting a period to her ex-lover's days. The ex-lover, however, did not wish a period, nor even a comma, put to his days, and believing in the adage, "Discretion is the better part of valor," he started on a trip for his health.

Unable to revenge herself on the marquis, Ouida revenged herself on the Florentines. She wrote "A Winter City," in which the frivolity, the insincerity, the ignoble qualities of the inhabitants of the gay Tuscan capital, are depicted without mercy.

It is astonishing how soon one becomes-if the expression is permissible-educated to antiquities. For instance, there is Bradly, a young Philadelphian. When I first met Bradly in New York he was overflowing with the usual Philadelphia reverence for Independence Hall and for the relics of Washington, the antiquities of which his home boasts. After Pompeii and Rome and the Pantheon, Washington and Independence Hall seemed things of yesterday.

"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Bradly, when I pointed out the resting-place of a saint of the eleventh century, "I don't care to see these modern tombs."

In comparison with Scipio's tomb, the tomb of the cleventh