While she shook her head in doubt and suspicion, Juno spread out many yards of purple satin, white lace and pink lining, a wreath of muslin orange blossoms that should give no poisonous odour, a pair of white stockings, and--the sympathetic yellow boots. As the bent crone gazed at the finery her zincky visage lost the hard cast put upon it by a lifetime of penny-splitting bargain and sale. A tender light filled her eye, and she lived again in the sweet days of her youth. Where was the soldier boy that her girlish heart loved? Where the dashing _Bersagliere_ that led her to church in the mountain village? A great mound in northern Africa--the tomb of a whole regiment--could answer. Across the mind of Juno there flashed a thought of her husband and the crime upon which she was about to enter, but the next instant it perished as she snatched up the purple satin to preserve it from danger, for old Luigia had stained it with a tear. They plied their needles early and late, and when the Feast of Sunday dawned Juno was ready for the church. All Mulberry knew of the great event in preparation, and made high store of attending the ceremony at the altar; but only the first families of the Torinesi, Milanesi, and Genovesi, and the upper lights of the Calabriani, the Siciliani, and the Napolitani were bidden to the feast at Casa Di Bello. When Angelica received the command to make ready this feast, she declared to Signor Di Bello that a malediction had fallen on the house. To this he returned only a stout guffaw. It was a terrible blow to the cook, who was in full accord with Carolina’s policy of a closed door to wives. Many months she had longed for the return of her mistress, lest this very calamity might betide during her absence. O poor Signorina Carolina! To come back just too late to keep out the Napolitana--the baggage above all others against whom she wished to close the door. She knew it, she knew it! In her dreams she had seen Juno the Superb queening it over her in the kitchen, ordering more garlic in this, more red pepper in that, and making everything fit only for Neapolitan pigs to eat. Maria have mercy, but she must obey. So, taking up her big basket, she had gone forth to market, with face long and voice doleful, and poured into the eager ears of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods and the group of raven heads always about her, the story of the dreadful rush going on to plant in Casa Di Bello the woman whom Carolina had crossed the seas to keep out.