“Better friends?”
“Yes; I mean more—more—”
“More attached to the mistress?”
“Yes; more attached.”
“I always was so. Besides, people have their whims and caprices. But I am now convinced, Joanna, that I could nowhere be better off than I am here. The mistress is very good-tempered; she is not exacting or capricious. I return thanks to Heaven daily for the comfort and happiness I enjoy here.”
The house had, indeed, an air of tranquil happiness. Luiza went out every day, and found fault with nothing. Her antipathy to Juliana seemed to have disappeared; and she seemed to regard her now as an inoffensive creature. Juliana continued to take her soups, to go out, and to complain of her ailments. Joanna, who had much greater liberty than formerly, and who was almost always alone in the house, enjoyed the society of her carpenter. There were no visitors. Donna Felicidade was in the Encarnação steeped in arnica. Sebastião was in Almada, where he had gone to superintend the repairs going on at his villa; the counsellor had left the city for Cintra, “to feast his spirit,” as he had told Luiza, to “gladden himself in contemplating the wonders of that Eden;” Senhor Julião, “the doctor,” as Joanna called him, was working at his thesis. The household kept regular hours; silence and repose reigned everywhere. In the kitchen one day Juliana, vividly impressed with the quietude and contentment that pervaded the house, exclaimed,—
“Ah, Joanna, one could not be better off! Our boat sails in a sea of roses.” And she added, with a little laugh, “This is happiness!”
At about this time, as Luiza was one day going to meet Bazilio, she suddenly saw emerge from a gateway, a little beyond Santa Barbara, the figure of Ernesto.
“You here, Cousin Luiza,” he exclaimed in astonishment,—“in this neighborhood! What brings you here? It is a surprise indeed to see you in such a street!”
His face was flushed; he held up the skirts of his great-coat behind with one hand, and with the other brandished in his excitement a thick roll of paper. Luiza paused, very much startled. She told him she was going to see a friend.