Sebastiano with a widowed Sicilian lady and her daughter, the Marchesa
di Mola and the Signorina Beatrice Granmichele, generally, if
incorrectly, spoken of as Donna Beatrice.

Now the Conte di San Miniato, though only a count, and reputed to be out
at elbows, if not up to his ears in debt, is the sole surviving
representative of a very great and ancient family in the north. But how
the defunct Granmichele got his title of Marchese di Mola, no one knows
precisely. Two things are certain, that his father never had a title at
all, and that he himself made a large fortune in sulphur and paving
stones, so that his only daughter is much of an heiress, and his elderly
widow has a handsome income to spend as she pleases, owns in Palermo a
fine palace--historical in other hands--is the possessor of a smartish
yacht, a cutter of thirty tons or so, goes to Paris once and to Monte
Carlo twice in every year, brings her own carriage to Sorrento in the
summer, and lives altogether in a luxurious and highly correct manner.

She is a tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high
features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the
temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for
physical exertion, mental occupation and punctuality.

Donna Beatrice, as they call her daughter, is a very pretty girl, aged
nineteen or nearly, of greyhound build, so to say, by turns amazingly
active and astonishingly indolent, capricious and decided in her
caprices while they last, passionately fond of dancing, much inclined to
amuse herself in her own way when her mother is not looking, and
possessing a keen sense of prime and ultimate social ratios. She is
unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow
North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and