comes. I feel I could still love your body if the obstinate soul
were out of it. You know who it is that writes. I might sign "Michiella"
to this: I have a sympathy with her anger at the provoking Camilla.
Addio! From La Scala.'

The lines read as if Laura were uttering them. Wrapping her cloak across
the silken opera garb, Vittoria leaned back passively until the carriage
stopped at a village inn, where Giacinta made speedy arrangements to
satisfy as far as possible her mistress's queer predilection for bathing
her whole person daily in cold water. The household service of the inn
recovered from the effort to assist her sufficiently to produce hot
coffee and sweet bread, and new green-streaked stracchino, the cheese of
the district, which was the morning meal of the fugitives. Giacinta, who
had never been so thirsty in her life, became intemperately refreshed,
and was seized by the fatal desire to do something: to do what she could
not tell; but chancing to see that her mistress had silken slippers on
her feet, she protested loudly that stouter foot-gear should be obtained
for her, and ran out to circulate inquiries concerning a shoemaker who
might have a pair of country overshoes for sale. She returned to say that
the coachman and his comrade, the German chasseur, were drinking and
watering their horses, and were not going to start until after a rest of
two hours, and that she proposed to walk to a small Bergamasc town within
a couple of miles of the village, where the shoes could be obtained, and
perhaps a stuff to replace the silken dress. Receiving consent, Giacinta
whispered, 'A man outside wishes to speak to you, signorina. Don't be
frightened. He pounced on me at the end of the village, and had as little
breath to speak as a boy in love. He was behind us all last night on the
carriage. He mentioned you by name. He is quite commonly dressed, but
he's a gallant gentleman, and exactly like our Signor Carlo. My dearest
lady, he'll be company for you while I am absent. May I beckon him to
come into the room?'

Vittoria supposed at once that this was a smoothing of the way for the
entrance of her lover and her joy. She stood up, letting all her strength
go that he might the more justly take her and cherish her. But it was not
Carlo who entered. So dead fell her broken hope that her face was
repellent with the effort she made to support herself. He said, 'I
address the Signorina Vittoria. I am a relative of Countess Am