“I was merely supposing such a person, Ursula.”
“Then you don’t know of such a person, brother?”
“Why, no, Ursula; why do you ask?”
“Because, brother, I was almost beginning to think that you meant yourself.”
“Myself, Ursula! I have no fine house to resign; nor have I money. Moreover, Ursula, though I have a great regard for you, and though I consider you very handsome, quite as handsome, indeed, as Meridiana in . . .”
“Meridiana! where did you meet with her?” said Ursula, with a toss of her head.
“Why, in old Pulci’s . . .”
“At old Fulcher’s! that’s not true brother. Meridiana is a Borzlam, and travels with her own people, and not with old Fulcher, [{306}] who is a gorgio and a basket-maker.”
“I was not speaking of old Fulcher, but Pulci, a great Italian writer, who lived many hundred years ago, and who, in his poem called the ‘Morgante Maggiore,’ speaks of Meridiana, the daughter of . . .”
“Old Carus Borzlam,” said Ursula; “but if the fellow you mention lived so many hundred years ago, how, in the name of wonder, could he know anything of Meridiana?”