why you should do anything at all for me! In the natural course of
things I should either have been sent to the country with my sister-
in-law, or to the convent with Clementina."

"You would have been very unhappy, my dear child."

"I do not know which would have been worse," said Sabina frankly.
"They both hate me, and I hate them."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the Baroness, shocked again, or pretending to be.

"In our family," Sabina answered calmly, "we all hate each other."

"I am sure your sister Clementina is far too religious to feel hatred
for any one."

"You do not know her!" Sabina laughed, and looked at the ceiling. "She
hates 'the wicked' with a mortal hatred!"

"Perhaps you mean that she hates wickedness, my dear," suggested the
Baroness in a moralizing tone.

"Not at all!" laughed the young girl. "She would like to destroy
everybody who is not like her, and she would begin with her own
family. She used to tell me that I was doomed to eternal flames
because I loved my canary better than I loved her. I did. It was quite
true. As for my brother, she said he was wicked, too. I quite believe
he is, but she had a friendly understanding with him, because they
used to make Signor Sassi get money for them both. In the end they got
so much that there was nothing left. Her share all went to convents