She is a tall, thin woman of forty years or thereabouts, with high features, dark eyes, a pale olive complexion, black hair white at the temples, considerable taste in dress and an absolute contempt for physical exertion, mental occupation and punctuality.

Donna Beatrice, as they call her daughter, is a very pretty girl, aged nineteen or nearly, of greyhound build, so to say, by turns amazingly active and astonishingly indolent, capricious and decided in her caprices while they last, passionately fond of dancing, much inclined to amuse herself in her own way when her mother is not looking, and possessing a keen sense of prime and ultimate social ratios.  She is unusually well educated, speaks three languages, knows that somehow North and South America are not exactly the same as the Northern and Southern States, has heard of Virgil and the Crusades, can play a waltz well, and possesses a very sweet little voice.  She is undoubtedly pretty.  Brown, on the whole, as to colouring—­brown skin, liquid brown eyes, dark brown hair—­a nose not regular but attractive, a mouth not small but expressive, eyebrows not finely pencilled, neither arched nor straight, but laid on as it were like the shadows in a clever charcoal drawing, with the finger, broad, effective, well turned, carelessly set in the right place by a hand that never makes mistakes.

It is the intention of the Marchesa di Mola to marry her daughter to the very noble and out-at-elbows Count of San Miniato before the summer is out.  It is also the intention of the Count to marry Beatrice.  It is Beatrice’s intention to do nothing rashly, but to take as much time as she can get for making up her mind, and then to do exactly as she pleases.  She perfectly appreciates her own position and knows that she can either marry a rich man of second-rate family, or a poor man of good blood, a younger son or a half ruined gentleman at large like San Miniato, and she hesitates.  She is not quite sure of the value of money yet.  It might be delightful to be even much richer than she is, because there are so many delightful things to be done in the world with money alone.  But it might turn out to be equally agreeable to have a great name, to be somebody, to be a necessary part of society in short, because society does a number of agreeable things not wholly dependent upon cash for being pleasant, and indeed often largely dependent on credit.

San Miniato attracts her, and she does not deny the fact to herself.  He is handsome, tall, fair, graceful and exceedingly well dressed.  He was several years in a cavalry regiment and is reputed to have left the service in order to fight with a superior officer whom he disliked.  In reality his straitened means may have had something to do with the step.  At all events he scratched his major rather severely in the duel which took place, and has the reputation of a dangerous man with the sabre.  It is said that the major’s wife had something