Alessina on two days in succession?"

But Don Ambrogio had finished his veal, and when he had finished his
veal he always left the table, first twice devoutly making the sign of
the Cross, and then with a bow to John, pronouncing the formula, "You
will graciously permit? My affairs call me. A thousand regrets." To-day
he slightly amplified that formula. "A thousand regrets," he said, "and
as many excuses for my inability to afford the information desired."

After his departure, John turned to Annunziata, where, in her grey
cotton pinafore, her lips parted, her big eyes two lively points of
interrogation, she sat opposite to him, impatient to take up the theme.

"Well, Mistress Wisdom!" he saluted her, smiling, and waving his hand.
"It is a good and wholesome thing for the young to witness the
discomfiture of the wicked. Your uncle retreats with flying colours. He
made, to be sure, a slender dinner, but that's his daily habit. If you
have tears to shed, shed them for me. I have made none at all."

From points of interrogation, Annunziata's eyes changed to abysses of
wonder, and, big as they were, seemed to grow measurably bigger.

"You have made no dinner?" she protested, in that strangely deep voice
of hers, with its effect of immense solemnity.

"No, poor dear," said John, with pathos, "no, I have made no dinner."

"But you have eaten a great deal," exclaimed Annunziata, frowning,
nonplussed. "And you are still eating."