"She is very beautiful, Bianca; but--" "Ay, what, you are a reader of countenances, _madra mia_; what see you there?" "That she is proud and self-willed. And woe be to any who may hereafter look upon her handsome husband with an eye of favor, for she loves him." "Can there be a doubt of that?" echoed Bianca; "has she not married him? And look at his attractions: see this goodly lot of cavaliers speeding on to join his banquet; can any there compare with him?" "Chi e stracco di bonaccie, si mariti," answered the lady; "and have you, Bianca, yet to learn that the comeliest mates oftentimes bring any thing but love to the altar?" Bianca made a grimace, as if she doubted. "It will come sure enough, then," she said aloud; "for none could be brought into daily contact with one so attractive and not learn to love him." "And who should this be in a holy habit, following the bridal equipage on his mule? Surely the spiritual director of the Lady Adelaide--the Father Anselmo it must be, that we have heard speak of. A faithful man, but stern, it is told; and so his countenance would betray. Bend your heads in reverend meekness, my children, the holy man is bestowing his blessings." "How savage I should be if I were the Lady Beatrice, not to be able to come to the wedding after all," broke in the giddy Bianca. "She reckoned fully upon it, too, they say, and had caused her dress for the ceremony to be prepared--one to rival the bride's in splendor." "She has enough to do with her newly-born infant," mumbled the good duenna. "Gayety first, care afterwards; a christening usually follows a wedding. Come, girls, there's nothing more to see." "Nay, mother mine, some of these dames that follow lack not beauty." "Pish!" uttered a fair young girl who had hitherto been silent; "it would be waste of time to look at their faces after the Lady Adelaide's." "Who is that going away? The Signora Montani? Why, it has not all passed, signora. She is gone, I declare! What a curious girl she seems, that." "Do you know what they say?" cried little Lisa, Bianca's cousin. "What do they say?" "That her mother is a descendant of those dreadful people over the sea, who have no religion, the heretics." The pious duenna boxed her niece's ears. "You sinful little monkey, to utter such heresy!" she cried, when anger allowed her to speak. "So they do say so!" sobbed the young lady, dancing about with the passion she dared not otherwise vent. "And people _do_ say," she continued, out of bravado, and smarting under the pain, "that they are heretics themselves, or else why do they never come to mass?" "The old Signora Montani is bedridden; how could she get to mass?" laughed Bianca.