At two o'clock, the general of the Carnival opens the public ball with the Mugnaia. This is held in the Piazza Carlo Alberto, which is the largest square in the town. The orchestra is placed in the centre of the square. Then there is a procession headed by the Mugnaia, seated on a scarlet velvet throne, and borne in a gilded car; then comes a military band, then the carriages filled with shouting masqueraders and ladies in elaborate toilettes; flowers, sweets, and oranges, are thrown with amazing prodigality as before. In the evening, again the opera, again the masquerade. Next day the procession takes place again, and there is a public ball in the square till ten, then the Abba of each parish solemnly applies the light to his appointed scarlo. When the last scarlo is burned out a funeral march is played and all disperse to their homes. It may be mentioned that the scarlo is not literally a bonfire in our sense of the word, but what we should call a Venetian mast, bound with furze and inflammable material, decorated with gaudy ribbons and surmounted by a flag.
It is not likely that the inhabitants of Ivrea, who thus commemorate her heroic deed, will ever forget their Mugnaia.
But we have wandered away from Papayani's, where the door was surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of the poorer among the gay pleasure-seekers of the Carnival. It was a rather trying thing for the arrivals as they stepped from their carriages and passed into the building through a double line of sarcastic or appreciative critics six deep. A quiet brougham draws up at the entrance, the door is flung open by a ragged masker, with an enormous paper nose, in a tattered pierrot costume. As he opens the door he bows to the ground with an exaggerated humility; and Haggard, in his faultless evening dress, steps out, with a frown upon his face, his big form towering above the puny Italian crowd as though he were a king of men in a horde of pigmies. He hands a lady out; her pale blue silk domino hides her effectually from the inquisitive gaze of the crowd. Her tiny gloved hand clutches Haggard's arm as he hurries her into the building, which is one blaze of light, and from which issue sounds of gay music and of the rhythmic tramp of thousands of dancing feet. The lady is discreetly masked, but though her personal identity is thoroughly disguised, she does not escape a fire of compliment from the appreciative ragamuffins on the pavement. "Ah! che ragazza bellisima." "Che figlia incomparabile." And as an antithesis to this flowery Italian praise, said one British 'Arry to another British 'Arry in the crowd, "Did you see her ankles, George? Do you know who that lady is?" Certainly the white satin dress of the Watteau costume that the lady whom Haggard was escorting wore, disclosed an undeniable instep, and 'Arry's favourable criticism was not undeserved. "I know one thing," said his friend, "there was no humbug in the single stone brilliants she wore as ear-rings." The pair disappeared among the glittering and gaily-dressed crowd that thronged the portico.
M. Barbiche, formerly of the French Embassy to the Court of St. James's, his eye-glass tightly screwed into one of his wicked little eyes, was lolling against one of the pillars of the foyer. He was criticizing the arrivals to Lord Spunyarn, who yawned by his side, evidently thinking the whole affair a bore.
"Our Haggard, my friend, is what you call an old fox, I fear. Who was the charming girl in the blue domino he was dancing with? I failed to recognize her. She is no habitué here. He intrigues me, this Haggard of ours."
"Pooh!" replied the philosophic lord, as he drove an unusually large volume of cigarette smoke through both nostrils; "some milliner's apprentice probably, got up regardless of expense."
"No, my friend, the shepherdess was too well chausée for that; besides, her mask hides her face too well. Your milliner would not be so farouche as to hide her face, unless, ma foi, she had perchance a bad complexion; but our Haggard is too great a connoisseur for that. However, he shall introduce me to this mystery, and we shall see."
"I wouldn't try if I were you, Barbiche."
"And why not, my friend? Why not, if you please? Is this Haggard, this English Adonis of yours, with the manners of a prize-fighter, is he to croquer all to himself all the pretty girls of Rome? Is it not enough that he shall have the prettiest wife in Rome? No, I wrong that angel, the most beautiful and the most virtuous of her sex. Is it not enough that this man shall every morning sit down to breakfast with the lovely Mees Lucy? Ah! when I think of Mees Lucy, I remember myself once more, and I think of those happy days in the Quartier Latin, before my uncle does me the honour to die, and I embark myself in the diplomatic career. I study your language in your Dickens, in your Thackeray; at last I attain proficiency. You see it for yourself, no Englishman ever shall suspect me, when we shall converse, of being other than a Briton. It is the same thing with the charming Mees Lucy. I, a Frenchman, feel my heart beat in sympathy with hers; she is to me a compatriote. We speak to each other as I used to speak to Cascadette in those old happy times. Vlan ça y est. This Haggard of yours he shall have his most beautiful wife, her most lovely cousin, but what shall he want with this little shepherdess in the blue domino. Bah," said the indignant man as he stamps his foot and settles himself down into his enormous collar, "I say he shall introduce me. Think you, my friend, that I fear this 'la-out?' No, I am of the first force, my Shirtings, at the savate."
"What's that?" said Lord Spunyarn stolidly.