Let me ask your lordship, said I, when do you return to Naples?

Why that question, sir? haughtily.

I will answer you frankly.  Your lordship, at the first of my acquaintance with you, invited me to Naples.  I promised to pay my respects to you there.  If you think of being there in a week, I will attend you at your own palace in that city; and there, my lord, I hope, no cause to the contrary having arisen from me, to be received by you with the same kindness and favour that you shewed when you gave me the invitation.  I think to leave Bologna to-morrow.

O brother! said the bishop, are you not now overcome?

And are you in earnest? said the general.

I am, my lord.  I have many valuable friends, at different courts and cities in Italy, to take leave of.  I never intend to see it again.  I would look upon your lordship as one of those friends; but you seem still displeased with me.  You accepted not my offered hand before; once more I tender it.  A man of spirit cannot be offended at a man of spirit, without lessening himself.  I call upon your dignity, my lord.

He held out his hand, just as I was withdrawing mine.  I have pride, you know, Dr. Bartlett; and I was conscious of a superiority in this instance:  I took his hand, however, at his offer; yet pitied him, that his motion was made at all, as it wanted that grace which generally accompanies all he does and says.

The bishop embraced me.—­Your moderation, thus exerted, said he, must ever make you triumph.  O Grandison! you are a prince of the Almighty’s creation.

The noble Jeronymo dried his eyes, and held out his arms to embrace me.

The general said, I shall certainly be at Naples in a week.  I am too much affected by the woes of my family, to behave as perhaps I ought on this occasion.  Indeed, Grandison, it is difficult for sufferers to act with spirit and temper at the same time.

It is, my lord; I have found it so.  My hopes raised, as once they were, now sunk, and absolute despair having taken place of them—­Would to God I had never returned to Italy!—­But I reproach not any body.

Yet, said Jeronymo, you have some reason—­To be sent for as you were—­

He was going on—­Pray, brother, said the general—­And turning to me, I may expect you, sir, at Naples?

You may, my lord.  But one favour I have to beg of you mean time.  It is, that you will not treat harshly your dear Clementina.  Would to Heaven I might have had the honour to say, my Clementina!  And permit me to make one other request on my own account:  and that is, that you will tell her, that I took my leave of your whole family, by their kind permission; and that, at my departure, I wished her, from my soul, all the happiness that the best and tenderest of her friends can wish her!  I make this request to you, my lord, rather than to Signor Jeronymo, because the tenderness which he has for me might induce him to mention me to her in a manner which might, at this time, affect her too sensibly for her peace.