Mrs. Dale.—"Six thousand pounds. I dare-say—certainly four."
Riccabocca, suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address.—"If Mrs. Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still—Miss Jemima!"
The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sate himself down beside the whist-players.
Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended.—"It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly.
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing, that night, in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess, which seems made to shame folks out of single-blessedness—"Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably six thousand pounds—certainly of four thousand."
"Cosa meravigliosa!" exclaimed Jackeymo—"miraculous thing!" and he crossed himself with great fervor. "Six thousand pounds English! why, that must be a hundred thousand—blockhead that I am!—more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, "but not for nothing?"
"Nothing! no!"
"These mercenary English!—the Government wants to bribe you."
"That's not it."
"The priests want you to turn heretic."