ho has awakened up.
M. Powys was our good genius. He told her that he had promised you to
bring it about. He, and Angelo, and myself, were the witnesses. So much
before heaven! I crossed the lake with them to Stress. I was her
tirewoman, with Giacinta, to whom I will give a husband for the tears of
joy she dropped upon the bed. Blessed be it! I placed my daughter in my
Carlo's arms. Both kissed their mother at parting.

"This is something fixed. I had great fears during the war. You do not
yet know what it is to have a sonless son in peril. Terror and remorse
haunted me for having sent the last Ammiani out to those fields,
unattached to posterity.

"An envelope from Milan arrived on the morning of his nuptials. It was
intercepted by me. The German made a second appointment at Como. Angelo
undertook to assist me in saving my son's honour. So my Carlo had nothing
to disturb his day. Pray with me, Laura Piaveni, that the day and the
night of it may prove fresh springs of a river that shall pass our name
through the happier mornings of Italy! I commend you to God, my dear, and
am your friend,

"MARCCELLINA, COUNTESS AMMIANI.

"P.S. Countess Alessandra will be my daughter's name."

The letter was read and re-read before the sweeter burden it contained
would allow Laura to understand that Countess Ammiani had violated a seal
and kept a second hostile appointment hidden from her son.

"Amalia, you detest me," she said, when they had left the guests for a
short space, and the duchess had perused the letter, "but acknowledge
Angelo Guidascarpi's devotion. He came here in the midst of you Germans,
at the risk of his life, to offer battle for his cousin."

The duchess, however, had much more to say for the magnanimity of Major
Weisspriess, who, if he saw him, had spared him; she compelled Laura to
confess that Weisspriess must have behaved with some nobleness, which
Laura did, humming and I 'brumming,' and hinting at the experience he had
gained of Angelo's skill. Her naughtiness provoked first, and then
affected Amalia; in this mood the duchess had the habit of putting on a
grand air of pitying sadness. Laura knew it well, and never could make
head against it. She wavered, as a stray floating thing detached from an
eddy whirls and passes on the flood. Close on Amalia's bosom she sobbed
out: "Yes; you Austrians have good qualities some: many! but you choose
to think us mean because we can't readily admit t