"So I have hear before," said the Count, rising, "they tell me myself, and another foreign Count, bring in fashion the middle age gentilman; he is more yong than me a little, but I preserve my figure better than him; bah, bah, this is nonsense, only it is good, so far as it make large the price. I buy my horse cheap, because he is starve, poor thing; the Bibel say, 'the merciful man, he is merciful to his beast,' so I have much mercy to him, and he grow very handsome, and I understand the ménage, so we look good together. When I will sell, come the rich Englishman, perhaps he is short and round, or perhaps he is long, and ill-made n'importe he jump on my horse, and he say, 'now I am look like the Count Riccardini,' bah, bah, he give large money, and I bring him money to you for the doctare fees."
"Really, dear Count, you are too kind. I thought you had been rich, or I could not have taken so much from you last autumn."
"Rich! so I am, my good madam, in Italy, and not poor in England, but many degrees from the rich in your estimation, and always shall be great way from the poor in my own; 'cause I have no debt, no show, no pretence; I no injure the poor man, that is baseness; I no rival the rich man, that is foolishness."
Lady Anne had many times made efforts of this
