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Insolent servants in a great house are generally a sure symptom of something amiss in the moral nature of their masters. Good and kindly masters have and make civil and kindly servants; and the big porter of the palazzo Castelmare was accordingly by no means a terrible personage. "Signora Orsola Steno! To be sure. I remember you very well, Signora, when you called on the padrone last summer.
She confessed that, when she had followed the path behind the church leading to the Pineta, for some little distance, she had changed her mind, and had turned off by another path, which had brought her back into the high-road not far from the church; and she said that she had then walked on till she came near the walls, where she turned aside to sit down on one of the benches under the trees of the little promenade; that she had sat there for some time she did not know how long; had then gone in to the Cardinal Legate's chapel, where she had conversed with the Contessa Violante, whom she knew from having often met her there before; and had at last returned home at a very much later hour than she had expected, and had found her friend Signora Orsola Steno uneasy at her prolonged absence.
When old Orsola Steno was told that the doctors declared that it was not within the bounds of possibility that La Bianca should have put herself to death in the manner in which she had been put to death, nothing could exceed the profundity of the contempt with which she sneered in reply: "Ah! they'll say anything to make out that they know more than other folks, and, maybe, they often know a deal less.
Latterly, by the exercise of the talent inherited from her father, Paolina had been able to do something, not only towards meeting her own expenses, but towards making some return for all that the good Orsola had done for her out of her own poverty.
The name of the protectress in question was Signora Orsola Steno, an old friend of her mother's, who, when Paolina Foscarelli had been left an orphan, had, for pure charity and friendship's sake, taken the child, and brought her up.
The Marchese Ludovico again loudly and enthusiastically joined in these manifestations; and then, when they were over, and the noise in the house had subsided, he quietly slipped out of the box, and springing up the stairs which communicated with the upper tier of boxes, entered that occupied by Paolina and the Signora Orsola Steno.
His first works were in the Scuola of S. Orsola, where he painted on canvas the greater part of the stories that are there, representing the life and death of that Saint; the labours of which pictures he contrived to carry out so well and with such great diligence and art, that he acquired thereby the name of a very good and practised master.
But above this sacred hemicycle there was another range of boxes; equally private boxes; as all the boxes of an Italian theatre are; and the key of one of these upper "loggie" had been secured by Ludovico, and presented to Signora Orsola and Paolina for the great evening.
If you will permit me, I will return to you here in less than half an hour." "Troppo garbato, Signor Marchese!" said Orsola. "If the Signorina will permit me," said Leandro, "I think I know of just such a little quartierino as would suit her, snug, quiet, and parfettamente libero." To this offer, Paolina felt herself constrained to reply by a silent little bow.
"That's my notion too," said the Commissary, taking a pinch of snuff, and proferring his box to his visitor; "but what is the new evidence." "Well, the girl lives, it seems, with an old woman, a country-woman of hers, a certain Orsola Steno.
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