.

Frascati.
One day, on entering Roderick's lodging (not the modest rooms on the Ripetta which he had first occupied, but a much more sumptuous apartment on the Corso), Rowland found a letter on the table addressed to himself.
It was from Roderick, and consisted of but three lines: "I am gone to Frascati--for meditation.

If I am not at home on Friday, you had better join me." On Friday he was still absent, and Rowland went out to Frascati.

Here he found his friend living at the inn and spending his days, according to his own account, lying under the trees of the Villa Mondragone, reading Ariosto.

He was in a sombre mood; "meditation" seemed not to have been fruitful.