One morning after breakfast I found the whole family assembled in the yellow drawing-room in a state of unusual excitement. Even the bloodless little Marchesa had a red spot on either shrivelled cheek, and her handsome old husband had thrown off for once his mask of impenetrable and impassive dignity in favour of an air of distinct and lively pleasure. Bianca was chattering, Romeo was smiling, and Annunziata, of course, was smiling too. Beckoning me confidentially towards her, and showing her gums even more freely than usual, she said: "There is great news. The Marchesino Andrea is coming home. We have had a letter this morning, and we are to expect him within a fortnight." I received with genuine interest this piece of information. From the first I had decided that the rebel was probably the most interesting member of his family, and had even gone so far as to "derive" him from his father, in accordance with the latter-day scientific fashion which has infected the most unscientific among us. Bianca was quite unmanageable that morning, and I had finally to abandon all attempts at discipline and let her chat away, in English, to her heart's content. "I cried all day when Andrea went away," she rattled on; "I was quite a little thing, and I did nothing but cry. Even mamma cried, too. When he was home she was often very, very angry with Andrea. Every one was always being angry with him," she added presently, "but every one liked him best. There was often loud talking with papa and Romeo. I used to peep from the door of my nursery and see Andrea stride past with a white face and a great frown." She knitted her own pale brows together in illustration of her own words, and looked so ridiculous that I could not help laughing. I judged it best, moreover, to cut short these confidences, and we adjourned, with some reluctance on her part, to the piano. Lunch was a very cheerful meal that day, and afterwards Bianca thrust her arm in mine and dragged me gaily up to the sitting-room. "Only think," she said, "mamma is writing to Costanza Marchetti at Florence to ask her to stay with us the week after next." "Is the signorina a great friend of yours?" Bianca looked exceedingly sly. "Oh yes, she is a great friend of mine. I stayed with her once at Florence. They have a beautiful, beautiful house on the Lung' Arno, and Costanza has more dresses than she can wear." She spoke with such an air of naive and important self-consciousness that I could scarcely refrain from smiling. It was impossible not to see through her meaning. The beloved truant was to be permanently trapped; the trap to be baited with a rich, perhaps a beautiful bride. The situation was truly interesting; I foresaw the playing out of a little comedy under my very eyes. Life quickened perceptibly in the palazzo after the receipt of the letter from America.