“Oh! I ask pardon. No, it isn’t my idea of madamigella. It seems to me that her likeness must be sketched in color. Those lines are true, but they need color to subdue them; they go too far, they are more than true.” “You’re quite right, Don Ippolito,” said Ferris. “Then _you_ don’t think she always has this proud look?” pursued Mrs. Vervain. The painter fancied that Florida quelled in herself a movement of impatience; he looked at her with an amused smile. “Not always, no,” answered Don Ippolito. “Sometimes her face expresses the greatest meekness in the world.” “But not at the present moment,” thought Ferris, fascinated by the stare of angry pride which the girl bent upon the unconscious priest. “Though I confess that I should hardly know how to characterize her habitual expression,” added Don Ippolito. “Thanks,” said Florida, peremptorily. “I’m tired of the subject; it isn’t an important one.” “Oh yes it is, my dear,” said Mrs. Vervain. “At least it’s important to me, if it isn’t to you; for I’m your mother, and really, if I thought you looked like this, as a general thing, to a casual observer, I should consider it a reflection upon myself.” Ferris gave a provoking laugh, as she continued sweetly, “I must insist, Don Ippolito: now did you ever see Florida look so?” The girl leaned back, and began to wave her fan slowly to and fro before her face. “I never saw her look so with you, dear madama,” said the priest with an anxious glance at Florida, who let her fan fall folded into her lap, and sat still. He went on with priestly smoothness, and a touch of something like invoked authority, such as a man might show who could dispense indulgences and inflict penances. “No one could help seeing her devotedness to you, and I have admired from the first an obedience and tenderness that I have never known equaled. In all her relations to you, madamigella has seemed to me”-- Florida started forward. “You are not asked to comment on my behavior to my mother; you are not invited to speak of my conduct at all!” she burst out with sudden violence, her visage flaming, and her blue eyes burning upon Don Ippolito, who shrank from the astonishing rudeness as from a blow in the face. “What is it to you how I treat my mother?” She sank back again upon the cushions, and opening the fan with a clash swept it swiftly before her. “Florida!” said her mother gravely. Ferris turned away in cold disgust, like one who has witnessed a cruelty done to some helpless thing. Don Ippolito’s speech was not fortunate at the best, but it might have come from a foreigner’s misapprehension, and at the worst it was good-natured and well-meant. “The girl is a perfect brute, as I thought in the beginning,” the painter said to himself. “How could I have ever thought differently? I shall have to tell Don Ippolito that I’m ashamed of her, and disclaim all responsibility. Pah! I wish I was out of this.”