be but indirectly connected with the loss she had suffered, and he had
seen enough of poverty at the farm to guess that the need of money was
somehow at the bottom of her troubles. How any one could be in want, who
slept between damask curtains and lived on sweet cakes and chocolate, it
exceeded his fancy to conceive; yet there were times when his mother's
voice had the same frightened angry sound as Filomena's on the days when
the bailiff went over the accounts at Pontesordo.

Her excellency's rooms, during these days, were always crowded, for
besides the dressmakers and other merchants there was the hairdresser,
or French Monsu--a loud, important figure, with a bag full of cosmetics
and curling-irons--the abate, always running in and out with messages
and letters, and taking no more notice of Odo than if he had never seen
him, and a succession of ladies brimming with condolences, and each
followed by a servant who swelled the noisy crowd of card-playing
lacqueys in the ante-chamber.

Through all these figures came and went another, to Odo the most
noticeable,--that of a handsome young man with a high manner, dressed
always in black, but with an excess of lace ruffles and jewels, a
clouded amber head to his cane, and red heels to his shoes. This young
gentleman, whose age could not have been more than twenty, and who had
the coldest insolent air, was treated with profound respect by all but
Donna Laura, who was for ever quarrelling with him when he was present,
yet could not support his absence without lamentations and alarm. The
abate appeared to act as messenger between the two, and when he came to
say that the Count rode with the court, or was engaged to sup with the
Prime Minister, or had business on his father's estate in the country,
the lady would openly yield to her distress, crying out that she knew
well enough what his excuses meant: that she was the most cruelly