“Juno the Superb?” “_Si, signorina._ Oh, the disgrace!” “_Misericordia, Santa Maria!_” “And the day is set. Luigia the Garlic Vender says it, and----” “For when?” “The Feast of Januarius.” “The baggage!” said Carolina, her austere calm all gone. “That’s her doing. A Genovese to be married on the Feast of St. Januarius! By the mass, we shall see!” Even as the bottled blood of Naples’s patron saint boils once a year, so did the corked emotions of Carolina begin to bubble. Clearly the hour for action had come. It was not the first time that a war cloud of matrimony had darkened her sky, and she buckled for the onset with a veteran heart. She plumed herself on having outwitted and driven to retreat more than a dozen pretenders to her brother’s hand. Once it was the daughter of Pescoli the Undertaker, a ripe maid of barn-owl face and sinewy pattern, famed for settling disputes with the neighbours _pugnis et calcibus_; but Carolina pitted brain against brawn, and this terror bit the dust. Next came the red Milanese, widow of Baroni the merchant in secondhand bread. In her hand she brought her husband’s ten years’ savings for dowry, and on her apricot face, still fresh, her everblooming smile; she, too, was outgeneralled by Carolina, as were many other would-be wives as fast as they showed their heads. At least, so it seemed to Carolina. That she held her place as mistress of Casa Di Bello, she firmly believed, was due solely to the fact of her never-flagging vigilance. But it may be guessed that her brother’s side of the story would have dimmed her self-glory as a match-breaker. Once he said to her, spicing the sentiment with a dry laugh: “Do you think I can’t admire a fine woman without giving her a wedding ring?”