So he had seen her this evening, binding his corn.
"I am quite well, padrone," she said, smiling shyly.
The two old ladies looked on amazed, for of course they were not in the secret.
"Signor Graziano, Miss Goneril Hamelyn," said Miss Prunty, rather severely.
Goneril felt that the time was come for silence and good manners. She sat quite quiet over her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the ladies treated Signor Graziano with the utmost reverence; even the positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest hint. They talked, too, of Madame Lilli; and always as if she were still young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before Goneril had ever seen the light.
"Mees Goneril is feeling very young!" said the signorino, suddenly turning his sharp kind eyes upon her.
"Yes," said Goneril, all confusion.
Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed; the gay serene little lady that nothing ever annoyed.
"It is she that is young!" she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought. "She is a baby!"
"Oh, I am seventeen!" said Goneril.