Minna’s heart seemed to freeze within her. Decidedly this was no common, tame-natured girl. There was passion, and the capacity for infinite suffering, in her. Perhaps too, by the same rule, the strength to struggle with that suffering. Who should say? But it was no light or frivolous soul which had felt itself on the verge of madness from the contemplation of that possibility. ‘No, no, impossible!’ said Minna brokenly, not knowing what else to say. ‘I never used to have such thoughts,’ pursued Fulvia; ‘it is all since twelve o’clock to-day. I can feel myself turning from a child into a woman. Yesterday I was a _bambina_, as Beppo always called me. To-day I feel quite old.’ She looked indeed ten years older than she had done the night before. Suddenly she added: ‘But I had a thought this afternoon. It came into my mind quite suddenly, and gave me comfort.’ ‘What was it?’ ‘You know we went to the opera last night. It was _Lucia di Lammermoor_. I have also read the romance of the “Bride of Lammermoor” translated into our language. Lucia found a way to escape when her mother was cruel to her, and so can I.’ ‘Hush! it won’t be necessary. It shall not be necessary!’ exclaimed Minna hastily. ‘I asked mamma why, when she had been kind to me all my life, she should now all at once become hard and cruel. She said she was doing me the truest kindness--that I could be no judge in the matter, and that if I had any affection for her I should gladly make this little sacrifice, if it were a sacrifice. Then she told me she was deeply in debt. Our visitors, it seems, do not make her fortune. By my marriage she will be released from every care, and will also have a large sum of money to do as she pleases with. For the first time since I was born, she says, she will know what freedom and self-respect mean.’ ‘At the price of her daughter’s slavery, dishonour, and hopeless degradation,’ said Minna to herself. ‘That, of course, is something,’ pursued Fulvia. ‘I must do all I can for my mother, naturally. But is it not awful? Oh! why is Beppo not rich? If he had plenty of money he would have given it all to mamma to pay her debts, and he would have saved me. He told me there was nothing strong in the world now except money, and that it always had been so from the earliest times, since first money was invented. It can do everything, and those who have it can make other people good or bad, just as they please, all because they have a few yellow lumps more than the others have. He was rough--quite rough and hard to me. He almost pushed me away when I knelt down and begged him to make things different. He said, “Go, child! you are in your mother’s hands, not mine.” “But you can talk to mamma--you can persuade her,” I said. He laughed. Beppo laughed. Everything is so strange that I no longer know what anything means.’ Minna knew by instinct the agony which that laugh had concealed.