Excerpt from Signor Monaldini's Niece

In these fine days, when the young princess lived proudly in her house, - a house not inherited from mouldering generations, each leaving a stain on the walls and a ghost On the stair, but freshly made for her, as the world for Eve, - the neighbors had employ ment for their eyes in peeping through the blinds. There were stately and select breakfast-parties, chiefly ecclesiastical, gayer dinners, and gayest evening recep tions, when the long windows stood a row Of brilliant lights, and, through curtains generously left half-drawn, such jewels and toilets, such arms and shoulders could be seen, as gave the on-lookers something to talk about.

Here they learned, if never before, how freely these fine people bowed, courtesied, and chatted to each other, who were SO impassive and indifferent if by Chance they met any Of these far-away, fascinated Spectators.

The young mistress grew Old, and in time was car ried out, making One last pompous show; and her son reigned in her place. There was less to see in his time. Perhaps he was a spendthrift, people said so; at all events, from his advent to his exit, the fortunes of the house paled like a fading star. The next generation rented a part Of the palace, and from that day its fate was sealed. Its prestige departed in the moment when the palace had more than one family within its walls. And so it went down, like the Prodigal, down to the very swine. The neighborhood deteriorated, shut in like some little cove Of a slowly-flowing river, where all the slime and dead leaves and sticks gather themselves out of the way Of the current, and decay at their leisure on the surface Of the water. For every disreputable person who came in, a respectable person went out of the street, till finally it was given up to the lowest tenants. The poor palazzetto grew to look very forlorn. Its stucco fell off, dirt choked its sculptures, its windows were broken or patched, and dingy rags flaunted from every Opening and on the roof and balconies. It looked worse in that state than a meaner house would have done, than its neighbors did just as the Prodigal Son must have looked forlorner at the trough than the swine.

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