“Pearls by lips of coral hid;”
adding, “The last time I had the honor of seeing Donna Luiza, one of her teeth began to trouble her so suddenly that she was obliged to go with all haste into Vitry’s to have it filled.”
Luiza turned crimson. Fortunately at this moment the bell rang. It must be Joanna, she said, as she went to open the door.
“We had been taking a delightful promenade,” continued the counsellor, “when Donna Luiza all at once was seized with a toothache. So intense was the pain that she hurried up the dentist’s staircase as if she were crazy.”
Apropos of pain, Donna Felicidade, who was anxious to awaken the counsellor’s compassion, began to relate the story of her foot; it was a miracle she had not died. And then she spoke of the numerous visits of countesses and viscountesses she had received; the anxiety of every one at the Encarnação on her account; the solicitous attentions of the good Dr. Caminha.
“Ah, I suffered a great deal!” she sighed, her eyes fixed on the counsellor, eager to draw from him some word of sympathy.
Accacio said, with an air of authority, “It is always dangerous to go downstairs without first seeking the support of the banisters.”
“Why, I might have died, might I not?” she said, turning to Julião.
“In this world one may die of anything,” responded Julião, leaning back comfortably in his easy-chair, and smoking his cigarette with an air of enjoyment. He himself, he continued, had been almost run over by a carriage that very afternoon; Sundays he dedicated to amusement, and he generally took a long walk in the suburbs. “I have been living shut up in my den for more than a month past, like a Benedictine monk in the library of his convent,” he ended, laughing, and shaking the ashes from his cigarette on the carpet.
The counsellor desired to know the subject of his discourse; it would undoubtedly be very powerful. When Julião told him that its subject was physiology, Accacio observed in sonorous accents,—