Then stepping to the window, "What a lovely view! The finest in Rome,

and that's the finest in Europe! I'm always saying if it wasn't Donna

Roma I should certainly turn out my tenant and come to live here

myself.... That reminds me of something. I'm ... well, I'm tired of

Petersburg, and I've written to the Minister asking to be transferred to

Paris, and if somebody will only whisper a word for me.... How sweet of

you! Adieu!"

Roma was sick of all this insincerity, and feeling bitter against the

person who had provoked it, when an unseen hand opened the door of a

room on the Pincio side of the drawing-room, and the testy voice of her

aunt called to her from within.

The old lady, who had just finished her morning toilet and was redolent

of scented soap, reclined in a white robe on a bed-sofa with a gilded

mirror on one side of her and a little shrine on the other. Her bony

fingers were loaded with loose rings, and a rosary hung at her wrist. A

cat was sitting at her feet, with a gold cross suspended from its

ribbon.

"Ah, is it you at last? You come to me sometimes. Thanks!" she said in a

withering whimper. "I thought you might have looked in last night, and I

lay awake until after midnight."

"I had a headache and went to bed," said Roma.

"I never have anything else, but nobody thinks of me," said the old

lady, and Roma went over to the window.

"I suppose you are as headstrong as ever, and still intend to invite

that man in spite of all my protests?"

"He is to sit to me this morning, and may be here at any time."

"Just so! It's no use speaking. I don't know what girls are coming to.

When I was young a man like that wouldn't have been allowed to cross the

threshold of any decent house in Rome. He would have been locked up in

prison instead of sitting for his bust to the ward of the Prime

Minister."

"Aunt Betsy," said Roma, "I want to ask you a question."

"Be quick, then. My head is coming on as usual. Natalina! Where's

Natalina?"

"Was there any quarrel between my father and his family before he left

home and became an exile?"

"Certainly not! Who said there was? Quarrel indeed! His father was

broken-hearted, and as for his mother, she closed the gate of the

palace, and it was never opened again to the day of her death. Natalina,

give me my smelling salts. And why haven't you brought the cushion for

the cat?"




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