"In our family," Sabina answered calmly, "we all hate each other."
"I am sure your sister Clementina is far too religious to feel hatred for any one."
"You do not know her!" Sabina laughed, and looked at the ceiling. "She hates 'the wicked' with a mortal hatred!"
"Perhaps you mean that she hates wickedness, my dear," suggested the
Baroness in a moralizing tone.
"Not at all!" laughed the young girl. "She would like to destroy everybody who is not like her, and she would begin with her own family. She used to tell me that I was doomed to eternal flames because I loved my canary better than I loved her. I did. It was quite true. As for my brother, she said he was wicked, too. I quite believe he is, but she had a friendly understanding with him, because they used to make Signor Sassi get money for them both. In the end they got so much that there was nothing left. Her share all went to convents and extraordinary charities, and his went heaven knows where!"
"And yours?" asked the Baroness, to see what she would say.
"I suppose it went to them too, like everything else, and to my mother, who spent a great deal of money. At all events, none of us have anything now. That is why I want to work."
"It is an honourable impulse, no doubt," the Baroness said, in a tone of meditative disapproval.
Sabina leaned forward, her chin on her hand.
"You think I am too young," she said. "And I really know nothing, except bad French and dancing. I cannot even sew, at least, not very well, and I cannot cook." She laughed. "I once made some very good toast," she added thoughtfully.