"Go and meet Mademoiselle Ginevra," said his master.

"I always regret our carriage on her account," remarked the baroness.

"She said she did not want one," replied Piombo, looking at his wife,
who, accustomed for forty years to habits of obedience, lowered her
eyes and said no more.

Already a septuagenarian, tall, withered, pale, and wrinkled, the
baroness exactly resembled those old women whom Schnetz puts into the
Italian scenes of his "genre" pictures. She was so habitually silent
that she might have been taken for another Mrs. Shandy; but,
occasionally, a word, look, or gesture betrayed that her feelings
still retained all the vigor and the freshness of their youth. Her
dress, devoid of coquetry, was often in bad taste. She usually sat
passive, buried in a low sofa, like a Sultana Valide, awaiting or
admiring her Ginevra, her pride, her life. The beauty, toilet, and
grace of her daughter seemed to have become her own. All was well with
her if Ginevra was happy. Her hair was white, and a few strands only
were seen above her white and wrinkled forehead, or beside her hollow
cheeks.

"It is now fifteen days," she said, "since Ginevra made a practice of
being late."

"Jean is so slow!" cried the impatient old man, buttoning up his blue
coat and seizing his hat, which he dashed upon his head as he took his
cane and departed.

"You will not get far," said his wife, calling after him.