"Do you ask me to agree with you?" she said slowly, "when I know what I
know, and you so evidently know nothing? Who, pray, are you to judge
whether it be unwholesome to the soul for the body to sleep in a good
bed--you, who have rarely had a bad one? And can you tell me that it is
a sin to wash the body, and feed and clothe it delicately, when all your
life long you have had ministers to yours, as of right? What do you know
of the inconvenience of the course I meditate when you have nothing with
which to compare it? You! to whom hunger and nakedness are an adventure--
yes, an adventure; undertaken for a whim or a frolic, I know not which.
For fifteen days of your life you have gone fasting, unwashen to bed--
but I for fifteen years of mine; consider me that, sir. Your
experiences, again, may be ended whensoever you choose; you have but to
write a letter, I suppose. But for me"--she touched herself on the
breast--"they have no end at all, save one--and I have never learned to
write. My good Don Francesco," said she lightly, "you don't know what
you are talking about."

This gave me the courage, if not the opportunity, to assure her that I
did. I entreated, reproached, exhorted her--to no purpose. Driven to it
at last, I alluded again to my unlucky expenditure, when she drew
herself up fiercely, and striking at me venomously, had me at her
discretion.

"I am perhaps in your debt for that magnificent outlay of yours, Don
Francesco," she said. "I am willing to admit it, if only to spare you
the trouble of reminding me of it any more; and if you ask me to
liquidate it, I cannot refuse you. I am at your disposition as soon as
you please, and in any manner that you think proper. But if you think I
am to be bought of my father and put in a cupboard like so much cheese,
and locked up with a golden key kept in some man's pocket, you are very