Her tone admitted of no reply; and the authoress understood that Regina was a commanding creature of a superior race. For this reason she looked at her with pitying tenderness and compassionate admiration. Struck by this look, Regina for the first time noticed her sister-in-law, whom Antonio had described as a fool. Arduina was tall, with a narrow chest and a countenance of yellowish wood. She had small, colourless, frightened eyes, thin lips with discoloured teeth, and three curls of pale hair. She was singularly plain, and now Regina perceived further that she was melancholy and enslaved. But this produced no pity in the bride, rather a sense of malicious consolation. In this odious world into which she had stepped through the door of the Apartment, there were victims like Arduina, in comparison with whom she was an empress! All this passed through her mind during the few minutes in which she was settling her hair in the presence of the three staring women. Antonio at last noticed his bride's annoyance, and sent the ladies away, pushing his cousins out familiarly. "Be so kind as to take yourselves off. I don't require your assistance at _my_ toilette. Go away. Make haste. We want rest." "You can sleep all to-morrow. It's going to rain," said his mother. "Let us hope not." "I expect it will." "Bother the weather prophets!" said Regina. At last the women were gone; and in an instant Antonio was by Regina's side, kissing her, leaning his face against her troubled one, and saying in his caressing voice-- "Cheer up; don't be so depressed! You shall just eat a mouthful and then get at once to bed. To-morrow we'll escape--we'll go out by ourselves. We won't let them bore us. Cheer up!" He put his arm round her and drew her to the dining-room, humming a merry tune-- "Mousey doesn't care for cream, Mousey wants to marry the Queen; If the King won't let her go, Mousey'll break his bones, you know." But Regina had no smiles left.