“But tell me, is there to be no tea here to-night?”
Luiza went to the kitchen and told Joanna to bring in the tea. Shortly afterwards Joanna entered, in a white apron, with the tray in her hands, and looking very red and confused.
“And Juliana?” asked Donna Felicidade.
“She has gone out,” returned Luiza; “she is not in good health.”
“And she is in the streets at this hour! That discredits a house.”
The counsellor also thought it not very proper, he said; adding,—
“For, after all, the temptations of a large city are very great.”
“No!” exclaimed Julião, laughing. “If they seek to tempt her, I renounce my fellow-citizens forever.”
“Oh, Senhor Zuzarte!” returned Accacio, almost with severity, “I alluded to another class of temptations, such as that of entering a tavern, of going to the circus and neglecting her duties.”
Donna Felicidade declared that she could not endure Juliana; she thought she had the face of a Judas, and that she was capable of anything.