The chair was well known, because the queen, both at the Baths and at Florence, was in the habit of sending it about to the houses at which she visited, since she preferred doing so to incurring the risk of the less satisfactory accommodation her friends might offer her! If space and the reader's patience would allow of it, I might gossip on of many more reminiscences of the baths of Lucca, all pleasant or laughable.

But I must conclude by the story of a tragedy, which I will tell, because it is, in many respects, curiously characteristic of the time and place.
The Duke, who, as I have said, spoke English perfectly well, was fond of surrounding himself with foreign, and specially English, dependents.

He had at the time of which I am speaking, two English--or rather, one English and one Irish--chamberlains, and a third, who, though a German, was, from having married an Englishwoman, and habitually speaking English, and living with Englishmen, much the same, at least to the Duke, as an Englishman.

The Englishman was a young man; the German an older man, and the father of a family.

And both were good, upright, and honourable men; both long since gone over to the majority.
The Irishman, also a young man, was a bad fellow; but he was an especial favourite with the Duke, who was strongly attached to him.