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on very much as usual.
 I was fortunate enough to have in my service a combined cook and "homme de confiance" who had been with me off and on for some ten years. Middle-aged and lame Antonio proved himself trustworthy. 
 His kindness to human begins and to animals won foe him the appellation of "Il santo", and this could be even more adequately applied to the patience he showed in all that regarded his wife, a sour-faced old woman who suffered from some internal complaint that prevented her from working, but which in no wise affected her appetite. Was she not discovered devouring heaps of cherries along with their stones? This woman is, I suppose, Antonio's cross. Yet I know that he is fond of her, caters to her huge appetite and calls her "la povera creatura".
 It was about this time that an old friends of mine, Natalie barney, decided to join me in Florence. She had written from Paris, but I, thinking it wiser that she should accompany her sister to America, wrote to her to that effect. My friend however arrived without waiting for my reply. She had heart disease, she said, and feared the trip over to America. We were both invalids in a way and so, after promising noy to blame me for whatever might be in store foe us, my friend decided to remain.
 Evidently we felt that our being European Americans demanded a very special attitude: should Italy or France be in danger we