y, a course which brought
the whole _procedure_ again into question, and rendered a fresh vote
necessary.

"Ah! the poor Contessina!" exclaimed Victorine, "she'll surely die of
grief, for, calm as she may seem, there's an inward fire consuming her.
It seems that Monsignor Palma is the master of the situation, and can
make the affair drag on as long as he likes. And then a deal of money had
already been spent, and one will have to spend a lot more. Abbe Pisoni,
whom you know, was very badly inspired when he helped on that marriage;
and though I certainly don't want to soil the memory of my good mistress,
Countess Ernesta, who was a real saint, it's none the less true that she
wrecked her daughter's life when she gave her to Count Prada."

The housekeeper paused. Then, impelled by an instinctive sense of
justice, she resumed. "It's only natural that Count Prada should be
annoyed, for he's really being made a fool of. And, for my part, as there
is no end to all the fuss, and this divorce is so hard to obtain, I
really don't see why the Contessina shouldn't live with her Dario without
troubling any further. Haven't they loved one another ever since they
were children? Aren't they both young and handsome, and wouldn't they be
happy together, whatever the world might say? Happiness, _mon Dieu_! one
finds it so seldom that one can't afford to let it pass."

Then, seeing how greatly surprised Pierre was at hearing such language,
she began to laugh with the quiet composure of one belonging to the
humble classes of France, whose only desire is a quiet and happy life,
irrespective of matrimonial ties. Next, in more discreet language, she
proceeded to lament another worry which had fallen on the household,
another result of the divorce affair. A rupture had come about between
Donna Serafina and Advocate Morano, who was very displeased with the ill
success of his memoir to the congregation, and accused Father
Lorenza--the confessor of the Boccanera ladies--of having urged them into
a deplorable lawsuit, whose only fruit could be a wretched scandal
affecting everybody. And so great had been Morano's annoyance that he had
not returned to the Boccanera mansion, but had severed a connection of
thirty years' standing, to the stupefaction of all the Roman
drawing-rooms, which altogether disapproved of his conduct. Donna
Serafina was, for her part, the more grieved as she suspected the
advocate of having purposely picked the quarrel in o