hot for your supper; come in, come in. And, little things, little dainty
bits!--do you live in Zotti's house for nothing? Sweetest delicacies
that make the tongue run a stream!--just notions of a taste--the palate
smacks and forgets; the soul seizes and remembers!'

'Oh, such seductions!' Vittoria exclaimed.

'It is,' Zotti pursued his idea, with fingers picturesquely twirling in a
spider-like distension; 'it is like the damned, and they have but a crumb
of a chance of Paradise, and down swoops St. Peter and has them in the
gates fast! You are worthy of all that a man can do for you, signorina.
Let him study, let him work, let him invent,--you are worthy of all.'

'I hope I am not too hungry to discriminate! Zotti I see Monte Rosa.'

'Signorina, you are pleased to say so when you are famishing. It is
because--' the enthusiastic confectioner looked deep and oblique, as one
who combined a remarkable subtlety of insight with profound reflection;
'it is because the lighter you get the higher you mount; up like an eagle
of the peaks! But we'll give that hungry fellow a fall. A dish of hot
minestra shoots him dead. Then, a tart of pistachios and chocolate and
cream--and my head to him who shall reveal to me the flavouring!'

'When I wake in the morning, I shall have lived a month or two in Arabia,
Zotti. Tell me no more; I will come in,' said Vittoria.

'Then, signorina, a little crisp filbert--biscuit--a composition! You
crack it, and a surprise! And then, and then my dish; Zotti's dish, that
is not yet christened. Signorina, let Italy rise first; the great
inventor of the dish winked and nodded temperately. 'Let her rise. A