feel as if you had go enough left for it?"

"Oh, as for that," said Bianca, laughing with lips and eyes, "I am
up to anything. I should like it of all things. But--"

"Ah! what a terrible word that 'but' is. But what?" said Ludovico,
who had no sooner conceived the idea than he became eager to put it
into execution. "But what?"

"But--a great many things. Unhappily, there is no word comes oftener
into one's life than that odious 'but.' But who is to go with me? I
cannot go all alone by myself?"

"Oh, that's no but at all. Of course, Signora, I did not propose
such an expedition to you without proposing to myself the honour of
accompanying you," said Ludovico with a profound bow.

"What a scappata! I should like it of all things. But--there it
comes again! `But' the second; will not the good people say all
sorts of ill-natured and absurd things?"

"Not a bit of it--in my case, Signora. Everybody knows that we have
been very good friends; and that I have not been coxcomb enough to
have ever hoped to be aught more to you, having been protected, as
they all know, from such danger in the only way in which a man could
possibly be protected from it," said Ludovico, bowing again.

"Dear me! What way is that? It might be so useful to know. Would it
be equally applicable to a lady, I wonder?" said Bianca, looking at
him half laughingly, half-poutingly, with her head on one side. "Oh