but their own felicity.
"Where have you awaked, levrottin?" (leveret), he asked, using one of the pretty pet names he had learned in her country, where he had been for three months on a Royal Commission; "where are you? This time yesterday we were at Parma; to-day we are here. Think, what a distance! And three months ago we didn't so much as know each other! Do you remember the first day we made friends on the river-bank? And that great crimson sun behind the woods? The Master kept looking at us and smiling; he knew we'd have to get married!"
"'Here is the Signor Antonio Venutelli, junior clerk at the Treasury, and here is the noble Signorina Regina Tagliamari,'" continued Antonio, imitating the nasal voice of the school-master who had arranged their introduction; "'she is a real queen of goodness and of genius, fit to reign in the Eternal City, in unequalled Rome.'"
"Poor old man!" said Regina, more gravely. "Yes, we certainly owe our meeting to him."
"And what do you suppose they'd say in your home, now? They'd say, 'Regina is in Rome, and she's still in bed, the little sluggard, and she hasn't even been to Mass, the little heathen! Fancy being in Rome and not going to Mass!'"
"But look here!" she began, clapping her hands and imitating her husband's mock-heroic tone. However she was no longer merry. A sweet vision had melted her heart. She saw her mother—her dear, delicate mother, her pretty sister, her youngest brother, her darling, all starting for the nine o'clock Mass. The house on the river-bank was deserted. It stood among poplar-trees veiled in mist, like a fancy house in the background of a stage picture. Inside a fire burned on the great hearth, the black cat sat contemplating the flames, the Baratta painting was illuminated with grey and rosy tints which gave it a suggestive relief. The sound of a bell, singularly pure in tone, was dying on the still air in metallic vibrations; the northern landscape, with the great river winding along like an immense blue vein in the whiteness of that snowy plain, was spread out under the vaporous heaven. Silence—mysterious immensity—the mist of dream!
But this nostalgic vision, which gave her a melancholy pleasure seen thus under the caresses of him for whom she had abandoned all, was snatched from her by the entrance of Signora Anna. The old lady, round and enormous in her red flannel dressing-gown, her hair already dressed, and blacker and oilier than yesterday, advanced with circumspection, puffing and panting as was her wont. Regina blushed, removed her arms from Antonio's neck, and covered herself hastily.
"Why so?" said the young man, taking the coverlet away, "show your lovely little arms at once! Look, mother! see how white my Regina is!"
"No, no! let me alone!" said the girl, hiding under the sheet. But the old lady came nearer, helped Antonio to unbutton the wrist of Regina's jacket, and passed an approving finger over the bride's white and child-like arm.
"Upon my word!" she exclaimed, "you are really lovely!"
"Oh, dear me! Do please let me alone!" said Regina, flattered all the same.
"Isn't she lovely? Isn't she?" insisted Antonio, kissing the fair arms.
"Lovely! Very well made indeed! Brava!" said the mother-in-law, almost as if Regina had made herself. "And indeed I was white and shapely enough myself once," she went on; "now I'm an old woman, but in my day I was very much admired, I assure you!"
"Well really!" thought Regina, looking at her mother-in-law's thick hands, brown, chapped, smelling of garlic, and very unlike the blue-veined whiteness of her own delicate members.
"Won't you have some coffee? Do you take it with milk? I'll go and get the coffee and the milk—a little scalded cream—whipped eggs?"
"For pity's sake!" cried Regina. "No, thank you, I don't want anything."
"Get up! Get up!" said Antonio, "the rain's stopping. Let's go out!"
"You're not going to take her out in this weather!" protested the mother-in-law. "You're insane! She shall stay in bed. When I was a girl" (she turned to Regina), "I always stayed in bed the whole morning. But those days were different. The servants then were faithful, sensible, active, and the mistress could do the lady even if she wasn't one—thank heaven, I could."
"So you can now. What's to hinder you?" said Regina politely.
"Goodness me! What! with such maids as we get now? Dishonest, untruthful, ungrateful hussies! They're the torment of one's existence. There was a time when I loved my servants just as if they were members of the family; now I don't love them at all. They don't deserve it. This girl I have now makes me sick with the worries she causes me."
"Get up! Get up!" repeated Antonio.
But Regina would not stir till she was left alone. Then she jumped out of bed, and, clad in her long white nightgown, stood disconsolately looking at the chaos of objects in the room and at the grey light which penetrated by the three doleful windows. She made also the sad discovery that at Rome it was colder than in her own north country! She washed, dressed, and did her hair awkwardly. Everything was inconvenient from the washstand to the looking-glass, the latter a panel in the wardrobe draped with a heavy curtain. Having tucked this up she saw herself in the glass; pale, worn out, ugly. Her depression reasserted itself.
She was long in appearing, and at last Antonio came to look for her. She had peevishly pulled up all the blinds, tucked away all the curtains, and was engaged settling the things in her trunk.
"What on earth are you about?" he asked a little impatiently; and, taking her hand, led her to the dining-room, where Signora Anna was waiting at a table laid for two, but groaning under food sufficient for ten.
"I only want a drop of black coffee," said Regina.
"Only black coffee? My dear, you are crazy—so to speak—I don't mean any offence. But, you know, one must eat at Rome! Here is the black coffee. A little brandy in it?"
"No, thanks. It doesn't agree with me."
"Just try. You'll like it, I'm sure."
"No, no!"
"Yes, yes! If you don't mean to vex me——"
She had to take the brandy in the coffee, and then café au lait; and cream, and bread and butter, and biscuits, and the whipped eggs. At last tears rose in her eyes, so overwhelmed was she by her mother-in-law's insistence. By way of comfort Signora Anna at once offered a basin of broth and the wing of a roast chicken.
"But you're trying to kill me!" cried the girl, jesting, though desperate. Antonio laughed, and ate heartily.
Fortunately an alarming noise was heard in the kitchen, and the Signora ran, much agitated and tripping over her red dressing-gown. Regina seized the opportunity and fled to her room.
She put on a beautiful white scarf and a black hat with a pink ribbon, which she thought very smart; powdered herself carefully, and imagined every one was going to admire her as they did at home.
"Behold how lovely my Regina is!" said Antonio, half serious, half amused; "and just you look at her hat!"
Gaspare, buttoned up in his new great-coat, fat, heavy, rosy and pompous, was waiting at the dining-room door. He looked at Regina out of the corner of his eye, then saluted her and said gravely—
"Your hat is like a swallow's nest."
"I'd like to hear what you know about hats,
