rare old gems for which he was anxious to obtain a purchaser.

"Let us see, let us see," said Nello, walking up and down his shop.
"What you want is a man of wealth and influence and scholarly tastes;
and that man is Bartolommeo Scala, the Secretary of our Republic. He
came to Florence as a poor adventurer himself, a miller's son; and that
may be a reason why he may be the more ready to do a good turn to a
strange scholar. I could take you to a man who, if he has a mind, can
help you to a chance of a favourable interview with Scala--a man worth
seeing for his own sake, too, to say nothing of his collections, or of
his daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
quarrelsome and turned red."

"But if the father of this beautiful Romola makes collections, why
should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?"

Nello shrugged his shoulders. "For two good reasons--want of sight to
look at the gems and want of money to pay for them."


_II.--"More than a Man's Ransom"_


He was a moneyless, blind old scholar, the Bardo de Bardi, to whom Nello
introduced Tito Melema; a man who came of a proud, energetic stock,
whose ancestors had loved to play the signor, had been merchants and
usurers of keen daring, and conspicuous among those who clutched the
sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of Florentine with
Florentine. The family passions lived on in Bardo under altered
conditions; he was a man with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying