The room I occupied was a large _salon_. The ceiling covered with frescos, and the stuccoed walls brilliantly ornamented with flowers and arabesques, prevented this vast apartment from seeming gloomy or ill‐furnished. And yet, according to the tastes I have since acquired, it was absolutely wanting in everything signified by the word “comfort,” which, though now fully understood in our country, has nevertheless no corresponding term in our language. A clumsy gilt _console_, on which stood a ponderous clock, with an immense looking‐glass above, occupied the further end of the room; and in the middle stood a large, round, scagliola table under a magnificent chandelier of Venetian glass. This chandelier, as well as the mirrors that hung around, not for use, but to ornament the walls with their handsome gilt frames and the figures painted on their surface, were the richest and most admired objects in the room. A few arm‐chairs systematically arranged, a long sofa that entirely filled one of the recesses, and here and there some light chairs, were usually the only furniture of this vast apartment; but that day a small couch stood near the window, and on it reclined my mother—my charming young mother!—her head resting on a pillow, and her eyes closed. On her knee lay a small book, open at a scarcely touched page, which, with the ink‐stand on a little table before her, and the pen fallen at her feet, showed she had been overpowered by sleep or fatigue while she was writing. My mother at that time was barely thirty‐two years of age. People said we looked like sisters, and there was no exaggeration in this. I was already taller than she, and those who saw me for the first time thought me two years older than I really was; whereas my mother, owing to the delicacy of her features and the transparency of her complexion, retained all the freshness of twenty years of age. I looked at her. Her beautiful hair, parted on her pale brow, fell on the pillow like a frame around her face, which looked more lovely than ever to me. There was a deeper flush than usual on her cheeks, and her half‐open lips were as red as coral.... I smilingly gazed at her with admiration and love! Alas! I was too much of a child to realize that this beauty was ominous, and that I had much more reason to weep!... My mother was left an orphan at fifteen years of age without any protector, and poverty would have been added to her other privations had not Fabrizio dei Monti, a friend of her father’s, and a celebrated lawyer, succeeded in snatching the young heiress’ property from the hands of a grasping relative who had been contending for it. This law‐suit had been going on several years, and the result was still doubtful when Count Morani, Bianca’s father, died.