ow lonely, how unspeakably lonely! No, no, any fate but that.
In every way and from every point, the idea was revolting.

This was of course natural; to have felt otherwise would have been
unnatural. He had known no life but a combined one; he had been familiar
with it from his birth; he was not able to conceive of any other as
being agreeable, or even bearable. To him, in the privacy of his
secret thoughts, all other men were monsters, deformities: and during
three-fourths of his life their aspect had filled him with what promised
to be an unconquerable aversion. But at eighteen his eye began to take
note of female beauty; and little by little, undefined longings grew up
in his heart, under whose softening influences the old stubborn
aversion gradually diminished, and finally disappeared. Men were still
monstrosities to him, still deformities, and in his sober moments he had
no desire to be like them, but their strange and unsocial and uncanny
construction was no longer offensive to him.

This had been a hard day for him, physically and mentally. He had been
called in the morning before he had quite slept off the effects of the
liquor which Luigi had drunk; and so, for the first half-hour had had
the seedy feeling, and languor, the brooding depression, the cobwebby
mouth and druggy taste that come of dissipation and are so ill a
preparation for bodily or intellectual activities; the long violent
strain of the reception had followed; and this had been followed, in
turn, by the dreary sight-seeing, the judge's wearying explanations and
laudations of the sights, and the stupefying clamor of the dogs. As
a congruous conclusion, a fitting end, his feelings had been hurt, a
slight had been put upon him. He would have been glad to forego dinner
and betake himself to rest and sleep, but he held his peace and said no
word, for he knew his brother, Luigi, was fresh, unweary, full of life,
spirit, energy; he would have scoffed at the idea of wasting valuable
time on a bed or a sofa, and would have refused permission.

CHAPTER IV. SUPERNATURAL CHRONOMETRY

Rowena was dining out, Joe and Harry were belated at play, there
were but three chairs and four persons that noon at the home
dinner-table--the twins, the widow, and her chum, Aunt Betsy Hale. The
widow soon perceived that Angelo's spirits were as low as Luigi's were
high, and also that he had a jaded look. Her motherly solicitude was
aroused, and she tried to get him i