seemed to me that he was becoming a great dandy, but as he never asked
me for any money from the day he learnt to copy music I never put any
questions. He certainly had a new coat before Christmas, and gloves,
and very nice boots, that made me smile when I thought of the day when
he arrived, with only one shoe--and it had a hole in it as big as half
his foot. But now he grew to be so careful of his appearance that
Mariuccia began to call him the "signorino." De Pretis said he was
making great progress, and so I was contented, though I always thought
it was a sacrifice for him to be a singer.

Of course, as he went three times a week to the Palazzo Carmandola, he
began to be used to the society of the contessina. I never understood
how he succeeded in keeping up the comedy of being a professor. A real
Roman would have discovered him in a week. But foreigners are
different. If they are satisfied they pay their money and ask no
questions. Besides, he studied all the time, saying that if he ever
lost his voice he would turn man of letters; which sounded so prudent
that I had nothing to say. Once, we were walking in the Corso, and the
contessina with her father passed in the carriage. Nino raised his
hat, but they did not see him, for there is always a crowd in the
Corso.

"Tell me," he cried, excitedly, as they went by, "is it not true that
she is beautiful?"

"A piece of marble, my son," said I, suspecting nothing; and I turned
into a tobacconist's to buy a cigar.

One day--Nino says it was in November--the contessina began asking him
questions about the Pantheon, it was in the middle of the lesson, and