THE HOUSE OF ASTORRE FIFANTI.

Let me not follow in too close.
detail the incidents of that journey lest I be in danger of becoming tedious.

In themselves they contained laughable matter enough, but in the mere relation they may seem dull.
Down the borgo, ahead of us, ran the rumour that here was the Madonnino of Mondolfo, and the excitement that the announcement caused was something at which I did not know whether to be flattered or offended.
The houses gave up their inhabitants, and all stood at gaze as we passed, to behold for the first time this lord of theirs of whom they had heard Heaven knows what stories--for where there are elements of mystery human invention can be very active.
At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon the glossy neck of my mule.

Very soon, however, growing accustomed to being stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became a trouble to Messer Arcolano.

For as I looked about me there were a hundred things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer inspection.
We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val di Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before me, making way invitingly.