we generally contrive to show the brain.  As I say, wed brains to brute force!—­but my Laura prefers to bring about a contest instead of an union, so that somebody is certain to be struck, and”—­the count spread out his arms and bowed his head—­“deserves the blow.”  He informed them that Count Lenkenstein had ordered Lieutenant Pierson down to Meran, and that the lieutenant might expect to be cashiered within five days.  “What does it matter?” he addressed Vittoria.  “It is but a shuffling of victims; Lieutenant Pierson in the place of Guidascarpi!  I do not object.”

Count Lenkenstein withdrew his wife and sisters from Sonnenberg instantly.  He sent an angry message of adieu to the duchess, informing her that he alone was responsible for the behaviour of the ladies of his family.  The poor duchess wept.  “This means that I shall be summoned to Vienna for a scolding, and have to meet my husband,” she said to Laura, who permitted herself to be fondled, and barely veiled her exultation in her apology for the mischief she had done.  An hour after the departure of the Lenkensteins, the castle was again officially visited by Colonel Zofel.  Vittoria and Laura received an order to quit the district of Meran before sunset.  The two firebrands dropped no tears.  “I really am sorry for others when I succeed,” said Laura, trying to look sad upon her friend.

“No; the heart is eaten out of you both by excitement,” said the duchess.

Her tender parting, “Love me,” in the ear of Vittoria, melted one heart of the two.

Count Serabiglione continued to be buoyed up by his own and his daughter’s recent display of a superior intellectual dexterity until the carriage was at the door and Laura presented her cheek to him.  He said, “You will know me a wise man when I am off the table.”  His gesticulations expressed “Ruin, headlong ruin!” He asked her how she could expect him to be for ever repairing her follies.  He was going to Vienna; how could he dare to mention her name there?  Not even in a trifle would she consent to be subordinate to authority.  Laura checked her replies—­the surrendering, of a noble Italian life to the Austrians was such a trifle!  She begged only that a poor wanderer might depart with a father’s blessing.  The count refused to give it; he waved her off in a fury of reproof; and so got smoothly over the fatal moment when money, or the promise of money, is commonly extracted from parental sources, as Laura explained his odd behaviour to her companion.  The carriage-door being closed, he regained his courtly composure; his fury was displaced by a chiding finger, which he presently kissed.  Father.  Bernardus was on the steps beside the duchess, and his blessing had not been withheld from Vittoria, though he half confessed to her that she was a mystery in his mind, and would always be one.

“He can understand robust hostility,” Laura said, when Vittoria recalled the look of his benevolent forehead and drooping eyelids; “but robust ductility does astonish him.  He has not meddled with me; yet I am the one of the two who would be fair prey for an enterprising spiritual father, as the destined roan of heaven will find out some day.”