The Argosy — page 292: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Freak of Fortune. 275 worth reading, for he did not know how to spell; and yet he was the Cavaliere! It will do me good to laugh, for then I shall get warm ; and, when I have ended, Cammillo will have announced dinner: then, over our soup, roast pigeons, and hot wine, we shall forget the weather.” And now, dear reader, after this little prelude I will myself step aside, and, having introduced the worthy Signora Giulia to you, leave her to tell her own story; merely premising that I can vouch for its entire truth. She spoke as follows :— he Ir was in the year 1852 that we first ventured to remain through the whole summer in Italy, and the reason for our so doing was this: Lord Bevis, the well-known English Catholic nobleman, who was spending the summer at Albano, had given my husband a commission for a monument or tomb for his own daughter and heiress, the young Veronica, who had died, the preceding spring, at their English seat in Kent. As Lord Bevis wished to see the work in progress, and was impatient for its completion, my husband, as I have said, was determined to do what we had not hitherto ventured upon—to remain during even the hot months in Rome, working daily in his studio there, and coming out on the Saturday to Monte del Caccia. This was always a favourite place of ours ; where also we came for the whole summer, it being so cool and healthy, as well as within such easy reach of Albano. We took, there- fore, a large suite of rooms in the villa at the end of the town, near the great Convent of the Redentori, which had been built, a few years before, by the vine-dresser Zuccone, who, from a very poor, ignorant man, had managed, by one means or another, to get money. Here I and my son Fritz, then a boy of twelve, were very pleasantly located. Being, as I said, within easy distance of Albano, scarcely were we settled at the villa when, one hot afternoon in July, the whole atmo- sphere laden with the luscious tropical odour of the large magnolia, , which grows so abundantly at the Villa Zuccone, Lord Bevis unex-. pectedly made his appearance to call on me, accompanied by his. cousin Monsignor Oliver. It was so hot indoors; where, to tell you the truth, I was taking my afternoon siesta ; yet, at the same time, such a refreshing breeze from the Mediterranean was playing amongst the vine-leaves of the pergcla, that I ordered coffee to be immediately served there. It always still remains in my mind asa pleasant picture: the aristocratic, well-nurtured form of Monsignor Oliver, as he sat, in his rich violet soutan, with a background of flame-coloured pomegranate blossom. Lord Bevis, who, on the contrary, was a meagre, spare-looking little man, sat with his countenance irradiated with surprise and delight as he gazed upon the wonderful landscape which spread out before him, the same that we have from our own windows—the glittering Mediterranean ; the broad, GOMGOOO CS) CO am