reshold of that house Marana left a
tear such as the angels garner up.

Since that day of mourning and hope the mother, drawn by some invincible
presentiment, had thrice returned to see her daughter. Once when Juana
fell ill with a dangerous complaint:

"I knew it," she said to Perez when she reached the house.

Asleep, she had seen her Juana dying. She nursed her and watched her,
until one morning, sure of the girl's convalescence, she kissed her,
still asleep, on the forehead and left her without betraying whom she
was. A second time the Marana came to the church where Juana made her
first communion. Simply dressed, concealing herself behind a column, the
exiled mother recognized herself in her daughter such as she once had
been, pure as the snow fresh-fallen on the Alps. A courtesan even
in maternity, the Marana felt in the depths of her soul a jealous
sentiment, stronger for the moment than that of love, and she left
the church, incapable of resisting any longer the desire to kill Dona
Lagounia, as she sat there, with radiant face, too much the mother of
her child. A third and last meeting had taken place between mother and
daughter in the streets of Milan, to which city the merchant and his
wife had paid a visit. The Marana drove through the Corso in all
the splendor of a sovereign; she passed her daughter like a flash of
lightning and was not recognized. Horrible anguish! To this Marana,
surfeited with kisses, one was lacking, a single one, for which she
would have bartered all the others: the joyous, girlish kiss of a
daughter to a mother, an honored mother, a mother in whom shone all the
domestic virtues. Juana living was dead to her. One thought revived the
soul of the courtesan--a precious thought! Juana was henceforth safe.
She might be the humblest of women, but at least she was not what her
mother was--an infamous courtesan.

The merchant and his wife had fulfilled their trust with scrupulous
integrity. Juana's fortune, managed by them, had increased tenfold.
Perez de Lagounia, now the richest merchant in the provinces, felt for
the young girl a sentiment that was semi-superstitious. Her money had
preserved his ancient house from dishonorable ruin, and the presence of
so precious a treasure had brought him untold prosperity. His wife, a
heart of gold, and full of delicacy, had made the child religious, and
as pure as she was beautiful. Juana might well become the wife of either
a great seigneur or a wea