206 JEROME CARDAN. 



tell me who she is." He had before often warned him 

 not to be too precipitate, or take a wife without his father's 

 knowledge. He could not afford to marry into poverty, 

 it would be better than that if he should bring home a 

 woman without marrying her to be the mother of his 

 children. Grandchildren Cardan ardently desire^ " I 

 desired," he says, " to receive grandchildren from him, 

 thinking that as he was a copy of my father, his children 

 might perhaps be copies of myself." 



In reply to the betrayer of his counsel, Gianbatista 

 simply denied all knowledge of any impending nuptials, 

 and said that he was as much astonished as his father at 

 the news. On that day nothing was done, and nothing 

 on the next. Then came St. Thomas's day, the day in 

 December on which Brandonia Seroni was brought home 

 as Gianbatista's wife, in the manner described at the be- 

 ginning of this chapter. 



The youth might have looked far before he could have 

 met with a less eligible person. She presented him with 

 herself and her lost character, and brought upon him at 

 the same time the burden of maintaining three unmarried 

 sisters and a mother. She had three brothers common 

 foot soldiers ignorant of any trade, not bad fellows, but 

 rough, and wild, and poor. The family to which she 

 belonged was not originally poor, it was a wreck made by 

 her father Evangelista, who was a ruined spendthrift, 



