“Yes, I see her every week.”
“Ah! par exemple,” said Donna Clelia, folding her hands, “there is a saint for you! But I have stopped going to see her since the Carnival began, because every time I go I feel I ought to become better, and the very next day off I go to confession.... It has precisely the same effect on the ragazze; so they have begged me not to take them to the convent again before Ash-Wednesday.”
Stella, less accustomed than I to my aunt's style of conversation, burst into laughter, and I did the same, though I thought she expressed very well in her way the effects of her visits at the convent. At that minute the doors opened with a bang, and Teresina and Mariuccia made their appearance, loaded with flowers. At the sight of us there were exclamations of joy:
“O Ginevra!... Contessa!... E la bambina! Che piacere!... How delightful to find you here!”
A general embrace all around. Then details of all kinds—a stream of words almost incomprehensible.
“Che tempo! Che bellezza! Che paradiso! They had been amused quanto mai! And on the way back, moreover, they had met Don Landolfo, and Don Landolfo had invited Teresina to dance a cotillon with him at the ball to-morrow.... And Don Landolfo said Mariuccia's toilet at the ball last Saturday was un amore!”
It should be observed here that everything Lando said was taken very seriously in this household. His opinion was law in everything relating to dress, and he himself did not disdain giving these girls advice which cultivated notions of good taste, from which they were too often tempted to deviate.
We were on the point of leaving when Mariuccia exclaimed:
“Oh! apropos, Ginevrina, Teresina thought she saw Duke Lorenzo at Sorrento at a distance.”
“Lorenzo?... At Sorrento? No, you are mistaken, Teresina. He went to Bologna a week ago, and will not be back till to-morrow.”