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Dellombra was as good a name to me as another. Master received him with cordiality, and presented him to mistress. As she rose, her face changed, she gave a cry, and fell upon the marble floor. Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, and was a dark, remarkable-looking man, with black hair and a grey moustache.
Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome. I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered.
Master came up in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. When it was day, and we stopped at a miserable post-house, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Mark me! by the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner.
She would cast down her eyes and droop her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her.
He reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was for ever conquered.
The Signor Dellombra was a courtly gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress's being so ill. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and they dined alone. He withdrew early.
Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass. 'Will he will he ever come again? asked mistress. 'Again? Why, surely, over and over again! 'No, dear but he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again? 'The surer for the question, Clara! replied master, cheerfully. But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day.
One day master received a letter, and called me. 'Baptista! 'Signore! 'A gentleman who is presented to me will dine here to-day. He is called the Signor Dellombra. Let me dine like a prince. It was an odd name. I did not know that name. But, there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria on political suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altro!
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