though the deceased left her barely enough to keep body and soul together.  Happily Signora Evelina is not encumbered with a family; she is alone and independent, and with those eyes, that hair, that little upturned nose, she ought to have no difficulty in finding a second husband.  In fact, there is no harm in admitting that Signora Evelina has contemplated the possibility of a second marriage, and that if the would-be bridegroom is not in his first youth—­why, she is prepared to make the best of it.  In this connection it is perhaps not uninstructive to note that Signor Odoardo is in comfortable circumstances, and is himself a widower.  What a coincidence!

Well, then, why don’t they marry—­that being the customary denouement in such cases?

Why don’t they marry?  Well—­Signor Odoardo is still undecided.  If there had been any hope of a love-affair I fear that his indecision would have vanished long ago.  Errare humanum est.  But Signora Evelina is a woman of serious views; she is in search of a husband, not of a flirtation.  Signora Evelina is a person of great determination; she knows how to turn other people’s heads without letting her own be moved a jot.  Signora Evelina is deep; deep enough, surely, to gain her point.  If Signor, Odoardo flutters about her much longer he will! singe his wings; things cannot go on in this; way.  Signor Odoardo’s visits are too frequent; and now, in addition, there are the conversations from the window.  It is time for a decisive step to be taken, and Signor Odoardo is afraid that he may find himself taking the step before he is prepared to; this very day, perhaps, when he goes to call on the widow.

The door of Signor Odoardo’s study is directly opposite the window in which he is standing, and the opening of this door is therefore made known to him by a violent draught.

As he turns a sweet voice says: 

“Good-bye, papa dear; I’m going to school.”

“Good-bye, Doretta,” he answers, stooping to kiss a pretty little maid of eight or nine; and at the same instant Signora Evelina calls out from over the way: 

“Good-morning, Doretta!”

Doretta, who had made a little grimace on discovering her papa in conversation with his pretty neighbor, makes another as she hears herself greeted, and mutters reluctantly, “Good-morning.”

Then, with her little basket on her arm, she turns away slowly to join the maid-servant who is waiting for her in the hall.

“I am so fond of that child,” sighs Signora Evelina, with the sweetest inflexion in her voice, “but she doesn’t like me at all!”

“What an absurd idea!...Doretta is a very self-willed child.”

Thus Signor Odoardo; but in his heart of hearts he too is convinced that his little daughter has no fondness for Signora Evelina.

Meanwhile, the cold is growing more intense, and every now and then a flake of snow spins around upon the wind.  Short of wishing to be frozen stiff, there is nothing for it but to shut the window.