Page:Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. I, 1890.djvu/76

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CHAPTER III.

THE BOARDING-HOUSE ON THE MERGELLINA.

I am writing of 1878. Had you in that year consulted Baedeker. with a view to finding a genteel but not oppressively aristocratic pension in the open parts of Naples, your eye would have been directed by an asterisk to the establishment kepi by Madame Glück on the Mergellina; a note advised you that it was frequented by English and Germans, and was very comfortable. The recommendation was a just one. Madame Glück enjoyed the advantage of having lived as many years in England as she had in Germany; her predilections Leaned, if anything, to the English Bide, and the arrival of a "nice" English family always put her in excellent spirits. She then exhibited herself as an