The Argosy — page 304: what you’re looking at

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

A Freak of Fortune. 287 favours are not always blessings, so was itin this case. From that day he was an altered man. Fortunately the period for which we had taken the rooms in the villa soon expired, and we were spared the ludicrous annoyance of his bombastic airs. The day we left he intimated to us that henceforth he should occupy the whole villa himself, though he would be happy to see us for a day or so as visitors. Atthe same time he informed us that his carretiere, or carter, who took our luggage to Rome, would bring back some of the new furniture which he had ordered, all of which, he said, he had had emblazoned with the Zuccone arms. ‘This was very amus- ing, as Zuccone, very soon after his greatness dawned upon him, had had himself announced to my husband in his studio in Rome as il Cavaliere. My husband, ready for any joke, flattered him to the top of his bent, and there and then designed for him the Zuccone arms—a big pumpkin vert ona field gules. So now the grand furniture, duly em- blazoned, was to come back with the carretiere who took our luggage. For more than a year we saw nothing more of the great Pumpkin family, for our villa was not then built, and the following summer we spent in Germany. But the family greatness and dignity had not added to the happiness of Signora Mariana and her children. Young Beli- sario, taken from his labours in the vineyard and olive-ground and his dignity as a confrére of the Purgatorio, was sent to college in Rome. He wore a long cloak and a white cravat, and had his father’s commands to perfect himself into a young Roman gentleman. The poor little fluttering Pépina was torn from her mother’s side and sent to a convent, to learn to speak French and to embroider; instead of working amongst the vines and olives, with every now and then a tender word or a loving glance over the rose-hedge from young Giacomo Fioretti, of the neighbouring vineyard. The union between these young people had been arranged between fheir mothers ever since Pépina was in swaddling-bands. It was not till the Carnival of the following spring that I again saw the Cavaliere Zuccone, who now, in accordance with his superb notions, was here to make merry during the otto giorno del Paradiso, as the Italians call the eight days of the Carnival. ‘This he did by driving up and down the Corso in a handsome open carriage, pelting the grandees with confetti and the Jadies with flowers, now considering him- self one of their class. Never did man make himself more ndiculous, yet flatter himself, at the same time, that he was the pink of nobility. He smoked Havannah cigars ; he wore a gold eye-glass ; and wound up every night with the theatre and the masked ball. He was completely changed. No less so was the stout, good-tempered Mariana. The parting with her children, and, above all, her daughter, had been a great trouble to her ; she had grown thin and heavy-hearted ; and, on the Fri- day in Carnival week, suddenly made her appearance in our rooms, GOGO CO im