“This may be fitter for a court lady, than a girl of the colonies.”
“None who have yet worn of it, so well become it;—I lay it here, as a make-weight in my bargain with the Alderman.—This is satin of Tuscany; a country where nature exhibits its extremes, and one whose merchants were princes. Your Florentine was subtle in his fabrics, and happy in his conceits of forms and colors, for which he stood indebted to the riches of his own climate. Observe—the hue of this glossy surface is scarcely so delicate as I have seen the rosy light, at even, playing on the sides of his Apennines!”
“You have then visited the regions, in whose fabrics you deal?” said Alida, suffering the articles to fall from her hand, in the stronger interest she began to feel in their owner.
“’Tis my habit. Here have we a chain from the city of the Isles. The hand of a Venetian could alone form these delicate and nearly insensible links: I refused a string of spotless pearls for that same golden web.”
“It was indiscreet, in one who trades at so much hazard.”
“I kept the bauble for my pleasure!—Whim is sometimes stronger than the thirst of gain; and this chain does not quit me, till I bestow it on the lady of my love.”
“One so actively employed can scarcely spare time to seek a fitting object for the gift.”
“Is merit and loveliness in the sex, so rare? La belle Barbérie speaks in the security of many conquests, or she would not deal thus lightly, in a matter that is so serious with most females.”
“Among other countries your vessel hath visited a land of witchcraft, or you would not pretend to a knowledge of things, that, in their very nature, must be hidden from a stranger.—Of what value may be those beautiful feathers of the ostrich?”
“They came of swarthy Africa, though so spotless themselves. The bunch was had, by secret traffic, from a Moorish man, in exchange for a few skins of Lachrymyæ Christi, that he swallowed with his eyes shut. I dealt with the fellow, only in pity for his thirst, and do not pride myself on the value of the commodity. It shall go, too, to quicken love between me and thy uncle.”