My sister and my youngest brother were living with our grandam in a house of her own, in which it was her wish to die, because her husband had there breathed his last.

The house in which I dwelt was the same in which my father had died, and the rent of which my mother continued to pay.

It was large and well furnished.
Although Abbe Grimani was my chief protector, I seldom saw him, and I particularly attached myself to M.de Malipiero, to whom I had been presented by the Curate Josello.

M.de Malipiero was a senator, who was unwilling at seventy years of age to attend any more to State affairs, and enjoyed a happy, sumptuous life in his mansion, surrounded every evening by a well-chosen party of ladies who had all known how to make the best of their younger days, and of gentlemen who were always acquainted with the news of the town.

He was a bachelor and wealthy, but, unfortunately, he had three or four times every year severe attacks of gout, which always left him crippled in some part or other of his body, so that all his person was disabled.