She pined for some word of Pianura; but when a young abate, who had
touched there on his way from Tuscany, called for a night at the castle
to pay his duty to Don Gervaso, the word he brought with him of the
birth of an heir to the duchy was so little to Donna Laura's humour that
she sprang up from the supper-table, and crying out to the astonished
Odo, "Ah, now you are for the Church indeed," withdrew in disorder to
her chamber. The abate, who ascribed her commotion to a sudden seizure,
continued to retail the news of Pianura, and Odo, listening with his
elders, learned that Count Lelio Trescorre had been appointed Master of
the Horse, to the indignation of the Bishop, who desired the place for
his nephew, Don Serafino; that the Duke and Duchess were never together;
that the Duchess was suspected of being in secret correspondence with
the Austrians, and that the young Marquess of Cerveno was gone to the
baths of Lucca to recover from an attack of tertian fever contracted the
previous autumn at the Duke's hunting-lodge near Pontesordo. Odo
listened for some mention of his humpbacked friend, or of Momola the
foundling; but the abate's talk kept a higher level and no one less than
a cavaliere figured on his lips. He was the only visitor of quality who
came that winter to Donnaz, and after his departure a fixed gloom
settled on Donna Laura's spirits. Dusk at that season fell early in the
gorge, fierce winds blew off the glaciers, and Donna Laura sat shivering
and lamenting on one side of the hearth, while the old Marchioness, on
the other, strained her eyes over an embroidery in which the pattern
repeated itself like the invocations of a litany, and Don Gervaso, near
the smoking oil-lamp, read aloud from the Glories of Mary or the Way of
Perfection of Saint Theresa.
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