"By people who were but slightly acquainted with us, doubtless. I am the last of the Aldinis, one of the most ancient families of the Republic, proud beyond words, and now ruined. But my mother is rich, and Prince Grimani, who considers my birth and fortune worthy his nephew, sometimes treats me sternly, sometimes wheedles me to prevail on me to marry him. When he has a kind day he calls me his dear daughter, and when strangers ask him if I am really his daughter, he answers, alluding to his favorite project: 'To be sure, for she will be Countess Grimani.' That is why I was always called by a name that is not mine at Naples, where I passed a month, and where I knew almost nobody, and why I am called by the same name in this region, where I have been living six weeks, and where I neither see nor know anybody." "Signora," said I, making a mighty effort to break the painful silence into which I had relapsed, "will you please explain to me what relation this story can possibly bear to our love, and how, by the aid of the secret you possess, you can extort from your mother a consent which she would be otherwise disinclined to grant?" "What do you say, Lelio? Do you believe me capable of such detestable scheming? If you would listen to me instead of passing your hands over your forehead with that bewildered air,--my friend, my dear Lelio, what new sorrow, what fresh scruple has assailed you in the last few seconds?" "Dear signora, I beg you to go on." "Very well! Understand that I have never forgotten that incident: that it has caused all the sorrows and all the joys of my life. I realized that I must never question my mother on the subject nor mention it to anyone. You are the first person to whom I have ever told it, not excepting my dear nurse Salomé, or my foster sister Lila, to whom I tell everything. My pride suffered from my mother's error, which seemed to rebound upon me. However, I adored her just the same. Perhaps, indeed, I loved her all the more, the more I felt that she was weak and exposed to the secret maledictions of my relatives on my father's side. But my hatred for the common people increased in the same proportion as my love for her.