Poor Ernesto. The doctor had always been his best friend, and when the crashing announcement came, he thought Doctor Malatesta would be his man-at-arms, and now it seemed he had gone over to the enemy. And he looked even more dismal than before, for now, not only had his old love drifted away from him, but his old friend too.
The don saw these dismal marks of misery with dolorous satisfaction—the satisfaction arose out of his pride—and the dolor was buried in his heart. But for all that he showed his nephew to the door, though it should be said to his honor, that he did not dance when he was alone again.
CHAPTER II.
Norina, the young widow who had caused all that commotion at the don’s domicile, was not so rich as she was beautiful. If she had been, she would have been besieged with lovers; but she was rich enough to have a home of her own, and she was sitting in it reading on that very morning when the don directed his young nephew’s shoes to the street door.
The doctor had told her he should want her for a certain plot, though he had carefully only raised her curiosity without confiding particulars, and she had taken up the book to divert herself till the doctor, by appointment, should be there.
The book was a romantic old love tale, and she had got as far as, “Her looks were so heavenly, so delightful, that the Knight Richard, enraptured, fell at her feet, and vowed eternal fidelity,” when she flung it down, exclaiming to herself, that she did not want the heavenly lady’s instructions in the art of love-making. She well knew the power of glance in time and place, the effect of a smile, a tear, silence, a word; in fact, this vivacious little widow believed herself a coquette, though in reality, there was not a more earnest little woman in the whole world, when it was a question of her love for Ernesto. She did love him. She would plague him by flirting with third parties; but she could always turn his anger into smiles. Well, she was thinking of Ernesto, when a letter came to her in the handwriting of that youth. Ah! how all the bright looks went out of the face a moment after, and the letter was opened. She read it through, and was reading it again, when the doctor, without waiting for any ceremony, ran in and up to the little lady—for she was little.
“Good news,” he cried, “strategem—”
“Not a word of it, doctor,” and she thrust the letter into his hands.
He read: “‘My dear Norina, I write to you with a broken heart.’ (The poor young man) ‘Don Pasquale, advised by that scoundrel’ (that’s me, beyond a doubt, poor young man), ‘by that false, double-faced Doctor Malatesta’ (as I thought) ‘will marry a sister of his, and he turns me out of doors. And so love tells me I must run away from you. Therefore, good bye, good bye. May you be happy, ’tis the dearest wish of Ernesto.’ How glad you must be to receive this letter.”