come to Lucca on purpose to see that her orders are obeyed to the very
letter, else that rascal of a secretary might have hung out something
in spite of her. The marchesa, who has been for many years a widow,
and is absolute possessor of the palace and lands, calls herself a
liberal. But she is in practice the most thorough-going aristocrat
alive. In one respect she is a liberal. She despises priests, laughs
at miracles, and detests festivals. "A loss of time, and, if of time,
of money," she says. If the peasants and the people complain of the
taxes, and won't work six days in the week, "Let them starve," says
the marchesa--"let them starve; so much the better!"

In her opinion, the legend of the Holy Countenance is a lie, got up by
priests for money; so she comes into the city from Corellia, and
shuts up her palace, publicly to show her opinion. As far as she is
concerned, she believes neither in St. Nicodemus nor in idleness.

A good deal of this, be it said, _en passant_, is sheer obstinacy. The
marchesa is obstinate to folly, and full of contradictions. Besides,
there is another powerful motive that influences her--she hates Count
Nobili. Not that he has ever done any thing personally to offend her;
of this he is incapable--indeed, he has his own reasons for desiring
passionately to be on good terms with her--but he has, in her opinion,
injured her by purchasing the second Guinigi Palace. That she should
have been obliged to sell one of her ancestral palaces at all is to
her a bitter misfortune; but that any one connected with trade should
possess what had been inherited generation after generation by the
Guinigi, is intolerable.

That a _parvenu_, the son of a banker, should live opposite to her,
that he should abound in money, which he flings about recklessly,