Odo, who had accompanied Cantapresto to the water-side, was listening to these assurances and to the soprano’s vain invectives, when a well-dressed young man stepped up to the group.  This gentleman, whose accent and dress showed him to be a Frenchman of quality, told Odo that he was come from Vicenza, whither he had gone to engage a company of actors for his friend the Procuratore Bra, who was entertaining a distinguished company at his villa on the Brenta; that he was now returning with his players, and that he would be glad to convey Odo so far on his road to Venice.  His friend’s seat, he added, was near Oriago, but a few miles above Fusina, where a public conveyance might always be found; so that Odo would doubtless be able to proceed the same night to Venice.

This civil offer Odo at once accepted, and the Frenchman thereupon suggested that, as the party was to set out the next day at sunrise, the two should sup together and pass the intervening hours in such diversions as the city offered.  They returned to the inn, where the actors were also lodged, and Odo’s host having ordered a handsome supper, proposed, with his guest’s permission, to invite the leading members of the company to partake of it.  He departed on this errand; and great was Odo’s wonder, when the door reopened, to discover, among the party it admitted, his old acquaintance of Vercelli, the Count of Castelrovinato.  The latter, whose dress and person had been refurbished, and who now wore an air of rakish prosperity, greeted him with evident pleasure, and, while their entertainer was engaged in seating the ladies of the company, gave him a brief account of the situation.

The young French gentleman (whom he named as the Marquis de Coeur-Volant) had come to Italy some months previously on the grand tour, and having fallen a victim to the charms of Venice, had declared that, instead of continuing on his travels, he meant to complete his education in that famous school of pleasure.  Being master of his own fortune, he had hired a palace on the Grand Canal, had dispatched his governor (a simple archaeologist) on a mission of exploration to Sicily and Greece, and had devoted himself to an assiduous study of Venetian manners.  Among those contributing to his instruction was Mirandolina of Chioggia, who had just completed a successful engagement at the theatre of San Moise in Venice.  Wishing to detain her in the neighbourhood, her adorer had prevailed on his friend the Procuratore to give a series of comedies at his villa of Bellocchio and had engaged to provide him with a good company of performers.  Miranda was of course selected as prima amorosa; and the Marquess, under Castelrovinato’s guidance, had then set out to collect the rest of the company.  This he had succeeded in doing, and was now returning to Bellocchio, where Miranda was to meet them.  Odo was the more diverted at the hazard which had brought him into such company, as the Procuratore Bra was one of the noblemen to whom