The next day was one of vast import. Not only did it witness the purchase by Bertino in a Bowery store of a small photograph of the President’s wife, warranted genuine, but it brought to the ears of Aunt Carolina news that made her tremble for Casa Di Bello. From the market place Angelica bore the gossip that was fast reaching every niche and turn of Mulberry--the great tidings that Signor Di Bello and Juno the Superb had been seen the night before in the Caffè of the Beautiful Sicilian sitting at the same table eating a ragout of spiced pigskin. “It must be stopped!” declared Carolina, setting her gold-patched teeth. The old bugaboo of a wife arose, as it did with any woman to whom the running voice of the colony linked her brother’s name. “He shall never bring that Neapolitan baggage to Casa Di Bello.” That night, after dinner, from which her brother was absent, she hung long gold pendants in her ears, fastened her lace collar with a large cameo brooch, and, her puce-coloured silk all arustle, went to reconnoitre, as she always did when the sky of her dominion was threatened with a wife. It was a rare sight to see Signorina Di Bello abroad at night, afoot in the heart of Mulberry, and people stared in wonder or bowed reverently as she passed by. A half-hour afterward, when the Bay of Naples and smoking Vesuvius made way for Juno on the stage of La Scala, three shoots of the Di Bello stock were intent beholders--Giorgio in the box, Bertino on his bench under the gallery, and Carolina in a seat directly overhead, where her brother could not see her. With ears stopped, but eyes wide open, the priestly dame surveyed with alarm the expansive glories of Juno, and regarded with dismay the rhapsody of Signor Di Bello. If she knew her brother, and she was confident that she did, here was a woman who could have him for a husband. Thoughtfully she walked home, and thoughtfully she sought her pillow. * * * * * From the land of sleep there came no helpful message, and in the morning she sat before her sanctum window still pondering what to do. Over the forest of gray shafts that marked the sepulchres in St. Patrick’s Churchyard she gazed sadly at the broad windows of the rectory where she had lived those years of sweetest order and tranquility, where husbands and wives had no part in life’s economy, where marrying woman and wedlocking man jarred not the placid liturgy of her days. Suddenly the door swung wide, and Angelica panted into the room. As fast as her short legs could waddle she had come from the market place with a basket full of fresh vegetables and a head full of dewy scandal. “O signorina! The shame!” she gasped. “Truly a disgrace tremendous! Mulberry talks of naught else. I speak of what I know, for it comes straight from the lips of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods, who had it first from Simone the Snail Boiler.” “What?” “A grand shame! Signor Di Bello is betrothed to the Neapolitan singer!”