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You will, I am sure, respect our wish? She looked up, breathing quickly. All her sudden colour had gone. Her anxiety and discomposure were very evident. The priest bowed. 'I will be discreet, Madame, he said, with the natural dignity of his calling. 'May I ask you to excuse me? I have to walk into Selvapendente to fetch a letter.
'I met the Sisters the nuns from Selvapendente, on the hill, said Lucy. 'Such sweet faces some of them have. 'I don't agree, said Eleanor petulantly. 'I saw two of them yesterday. They smile at you, but they have the narrowest, stoniest eyes. Their pity would be very difficult to bear. A few minutes later Lucy left her for a moment, to give a message to Marie.
From the distance came a sound of wheels a carriage from Selvapendente crossing the bridge over the Paglia? Mrs. Burgoyne looked at the house for a moment in silence. Then, sheltered under her large white parasol, she passed round to the side that fronted the river. There, in the shade, sat Manisty, his arms upon his knees, his head buried in his hands. He did not at first hear Mrs.
I understand your anxiety, he said stiffly. She opened the old door of the courtyard and passed in before him. As he rejoined her, she asked him in a low voice 'Have you any more news? 'Yes. I found a letter at Selvapendente last night. The state of things is better. There will be no need I hope to alarm Eleanor for the present. 'I am so glad! The voice hurried and then paused.
Lucy and Marie tended her as best they could, but her strength appeared to fail her with great rapidity, and there came an evening when Lucy fell into a panic of anxiety. Should she summon the local doctor a man who was paid 80l. a year by the Municipio of Selvapendente, and tended the Commune of Torre Amiata? She had discovered, however, that he was not liked by the peasants.
Selvapendente the Paglia does the Signora see the bridge down there? veda lei, under Selvapendente? Those forests on the mountain there they belong all to the Casa Guerrini tutto, tutto! as far as the Signorina can see! And that little house there, on the hill that casa di caccia that was poor Don Emilio's, that was killed in the war.
Meanwhile Eleanor found some distraction in Father Benecke. The poor priest was gradually recovering a certain measure of serenity. The two ladies were undoubtedly of great assistance to him. They became popular in the village, where they and their wants set flowing a stream of lire, more abundant by far than had hitherto attended the summer guests, even the Sindaco of Selvapendente.
I tried to get a boy at Selvapendente, but no one would serve me. He paused a moment, then resumed speaking with a sort of passionate reluctance, his eyes upon the ground. 'I am a suspended priest and the Bishop of Orvieto has notified the fact to his clergy. The news was soon known through the whole district. And now it seems the people hate me. They will do nothing for me.
She talked for a few moments, gave a few directions as to paths and points of view, pointed out a drive beyond Selvapendente on the mountain side, bowed and departed. Her bow did not include the priest. But he was not conscious of it.
And she chattered on, in a patois not always intelligible, even to Eleanor's trained ear, about the widowed Contessa, her daughter, and her son; about the new roads that Don Emilio had made through the woods; of the repairs and rebuilding at the Villa Guerrini all stopped since his death; of the Sindaco of Selvapendente, who often came up to Torre Amiata for the summer; of the nuns in the new convent just built there under the hill, and their fattore, whose son was with Don Emilio after he was wounded, when the poor young man implored his own men to shoot him and put him out of his pain who had stayed with him till he died, and had brought his watch and pocket-book back to the Contessa
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