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Lombard church, heavily arched and galleried with stone, gleaming out upon a surface of faded brickwork, form the outline of the little town. It is inclosed by solid walls, and entered by an archway so low that the marchesa's driver has to dismount as he passes through. The heavy old carriage rumbles in with a hollow noise; the horse's hoofs strike upon the rough stones with a harsh, loud sound. The whole town of Corellia belongs to the marchesa. It is an ancient fief of the Guinigi. Legend says that Castruccio Castracani was born here. This is enough for the marchesa. As in the palace of Lucca, she still--even at lonely Corellia--lives as it were under the shadow of that great ancestral name. Lonely Corellia! Yes, it is lonely! The church bells, high up in the Lombard tower sound loudly the matins and the eventide. They sound louder still on the saints days and festivals. With the festivals pass summer and winter, both dreary to the poor. Children are born, and marriage-flutes wake the echoes of the mountain solitudes--and mothers weep, hearing them, remembering their young days and present pinching want. The aged groan, for joy to them comes like a fresh pang! The marchesa's carriage passes through Corellia at a foot's pace. The driver has no choice. It is most difficult to drive at all--the street is so narrow, and the door-steps of the houses jut out so into the narrow space. The horses, too, hired at Lucca, twenty miles away, are tired, poor beasts, and reeking with the heat. They can hardly keep their feet upon the rugged, slippery stones that pave the dirty alley. As the marchesa passes slowly by, wan-faced women--colored handkerchiefs gathered in folds upon their heads, knitting or spinning flax cut from the little field without upon the mountain-side--put down the black, curly-headed urchins that cling to their laps--rise from where they are resting on the door-step, and salute the marchesa with an awe-struck stare. She, in no mood for condescension, answers them with a frown. Why have these wan-faced mothers, with scarcely bread to eat, children between their knees? Why has God given her none? Again the impious thought rises within her which tempted her when standing before the marriage-bed in the nuptial chamber. "God is my enemy." "He has smitten me with a curse." "Why have I no child?" "No child, nothing but her"--and she flashes a savage glance at Enrica, who has sunk backward, covering her tear-stai
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