‘A great deal of money to do what I like with. I hate to be poor. A beautiful house of my own, not like this, filled with strangers who come and go, and are often rude and greedy and impertinent. I don’t mean you,’ she added quickly. ‘You are quite different from most of them, and I should not be telling you these things if you were like all the rest of them. As I say, a beautiful private house of my own, full of lovely furniture; the couches will be covered with satin, and the chairs with the same, I dare say. There will be brocaded curtains, as beautiful as those in the gallery of the Palazzo Doria, to which I once went with Beppo to see the pictures. There will be mirrors in every room, and any of the things which I have so often seen in the windows of the best shops in the Corso and Via Condotti I can have by merely going in and ordering them. Think of it!’ she continued in a voice of animation, and with a smile which Minna tried not to see was ghastly. ‘Me? I am just over sixteen. I shall soon be able to do all that. Ah, what will Gemma Barbensi and Bianca Sant’otto say? As for dresses--you see this?’ She touched it scornfully, and flicked a frayed portion near the cuff with contemptuous fingers. ‘You would never guess how long I have had this dress. More than two years. And I have grown so much that it has had to be altered again and again. I am so tired of this horrible old blue woollen gown. No more of such things. I can go to madame, or can send to Paris, if it pleases me, and order just what I like--silk and velvet things, or satin. Do you not like soft silken things? Yes, I’m sure you do. All your things are soft and flowing. This woollen dress you have on now’--she stretched out her hand and touched it--‘has a petticoat of silk under it. I like that--don’t you?’ Without giving Minna time to reply, she went on: ‘Then, there will be my evening dresses too. They will be lovely. I delight in evening dresses--gauze and silk, and all kinds of devices for making people look beautiful. And, then, evening is the time for jewellery. I am so fond of jewels. Diamonds are the most beautiful, after all. Do you think I should look well in, say, velvet--white velvet, with a long train, and quantities of fine white lace upon it--and a diamond necklace, diamonds in my hair, diamond earrings, diamond rings--what a lot of diamonds one could use to be sure, if one tried! I think diamond shoe-buckles also would be charming, and a diamond tassel to the string of my fan, which would be of ivory and white lace. How do you think I should look in such a costume?’ She sat up, facing Minna, and smiling the same fixed smile, the muscles of her face moving in obedience to her will, but no inner merriment or pleasure or anticipation present to give any light to her eyes or any expression to her smile.