castle.

To the Marchioness this was an agreeable period of spiritual compunction
and bodily repose; but to Donna Laura a season of despair. The poor
lady, who had been early removed from the rough life at Donnaz to the
luxurious court of Pianura, and was yet in the fulness of youth and
vivacity, could not resign herself to an existence no better, as she
declared, than that of any herdsman's wife upon the mountains. Here was
neither music nor cards, scandal nor love-making; no news of the
fashions, no visits from silk-mercers or jewellers, no Monsu to curl her
hair and tempt her with new lotions, or so much as a strolling
soothsayer or juggler to lighten the dullness of the long afternoons.
The only visitors to the castle were the mendicant friars drawn thither
by the Marchioness's pious repute; and though Donna Laura disdained not
to call these to her chamber and question them for news, yet their
country-side scandals were no more to her fancy than the two-penny wares
of the chapmen who unpacked their baubles on the kitchen hearth.

She pined for some word of Pianura; but when a young abate, who had
touched there on his way from Tuscany, called for a night at the castle
to pay his duty to Don Gervaso, the word he brought with him of the
birth of an heir to the duchy was so little to Donna Laura's humour that
she sprang up from the supper-table, and crying out to the astonished
Odo, "Ah, now you are for the Church indeed," withdrew in disorder to
her chamber. The abate, who ascribed her commotion to a sudden seizure,
continued to retail the news of Pianura, and Odo, listening with his
elders, learned that Count Lelio Trescorre had been appointed Master of
the Horse, to the indignation of the Bishop, who desired the place for
his nephew, Don Serafino; that the Duke and Duchess were never together;
that the Duchess was suspected of being in secret correspondence with