"Eh? You're right. Everything is heard here. But who's to pay for my
mourning the saints alone know! I sent an express this morning to my
father, but you know my brothers bleed him like leeches. I could have
got this easily enough from the Duke a year ago--it's his marriage has
made him so stiff. That little white-faced fool--she hates me because
Lelio won't look at her, and she thinks it's my fault. As if I cared
whom he looks at! Sometimes I think he has money put away...all I want
is two hundred ducats...a woman of my rank!" She turned suddenly on Odo,
who stood, very small and frightened, in the corner to which she had
pushed him. "What are you staring at, child? Eh! the monkey is dropping
with sleep. Look at his eyes, abate! Here, Vanna, Tonina, to bed with
him; he may sleep with you in my dressing-closet, Tonina. Go with her,
child, go; but for God's sake wake him if he snores. I'm too ill to have
my rest disturbed." And she lifted a pomander to her nostrils.

The next few days dwelt in Odo's memory as a blur of strange sights and
sounds. The super-acute state of his perceptions was succeeded after a
night's sleep by the natural passivity with which children accept the
improbable, so that he passed from one novel impression to another as
easily and with the same exhilaration as if he had been listening to a
fairy tale. Solitude and neglect had no surprises for him, and it seemed
natural enough that his mother and her maids should be too busy to
remember his presence.

For the first day or two he sat unnoticed on his little stool in a
corner of his mother's room, while packing-chests were dragged in,
wardrobes emptied, mantua-makers and milliners consulted, and
troublesome creditors dismissed with abuse, or even blows, by the
servants lounging in the ante-chamber. Donna Laura continued to show the
liveliest symptoms of concern, but the child perceived her distress to