peasants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for
some time. About this period, there had been great distress in the
country, and I had a little relieved some of the people. Generosity
makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, and
mine had probably been exaggerated as an Englishman's. Whether they
remarked us looking at them or no, I know not; but one of them
called out to me in Venetian, 'Why do not you, who relieve others,
think of us also?' I turned round and answered her--'Cara, tu sei
troppo bella e giovane per aver' bisogna del' soccorso mio.' She
answered, 'If you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.'
All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more of her for some
days.

"A few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and they
addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their
statement. They were cousins; Margarita married, the other single.
As I doubted still of the circumstances, I took the business in a
different light, and made an appointment with them for the next
evening. In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and
for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me
an ascendency which was often disputed, and never impaired.

"The reasons of this were, firstly, her person;--very dark, tall,
the Venetian face, very fine black eyes. She was two-and-twenty
years old, * * * She was, besides, a thorough Venetian in her
dialect, in her thoughts, in her countenance, in every thing, with
all their _naïveté_ and pantaloon humour. Besides, she could
neither read nor write, and could not plague me with
letters,--except twice that she paid sixpence to a public scribe,
under the piazza, to make a letter for her, upon some occasion when