“Yes,” she replied.

“Fried?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks,” she answered, and began to sing with an arch expression her favorite song from the “Grande Duchesse,”—

“Once a grandfather I had,

As the chronicles relate.”

But Luiza thought this music too boisterous; she wanted something sad—sweet—a fado, for instance.

“Yes, the new fado,” answered Leopoldina; “have you heard it? It is charming, and the words are divine.”

She struck a few chords, looked up at the ceiling and sang, keeping time with her head to the music:

“Yesterday a dark-eyed youth