Volume VI Part 61 (1/2)
I was sitting down to table when I had the pleasure of seeing Lucrezia herself coht and rushed to e, but she would have been taken for fifteen years younger
After I had told her how I had cohter
”She is longing to see you, and her husband too; he is a worthy old lad to know you”
”How does he know of my existence?”
”Leonilda hasthe five years they have been ave her five thousand ducats We shall sup together”
”Let us go directly; I cannot rest till I have seen iven her Have they any children?”
”No, unluckily for her, as after his death the property passes to his relations But Leonilda will be a rich woman for all that; she will have a hundred thousand ducats of her own”
”You have never married”
”No”
”You are as pretty as you were twenty-six years ago, and if it had not been for the Abbe Galiani I should have left Naples without seeing you”
I found Leonilda had developed into a perfect beauty She was at that time twenty-three years old
Her husband's presence was no constraint upon her; she received me with open arms, and put hter, but in spite of our relationshi+p andyears I still felt within my breast the symptoms of the tenderest passion for her
She presented out, and could not stir fro face and open ar,--
”My dear friend, ereeting I discovered that he was a brother mason The marquis had expected as much, but I had not; for a noblehtened was a 'rara avis' in the doo
I sat down beside hiain, while the ladies looked on a to see us so friendly to each other
Donna Leonilda fancied that we hted she was The oldthe truth bit her lips and said nothing The fair marchioness reserved her curiosity for another reason
The ht of e of ninety
Finding himself in the enjoyht yet have children in spite of his advanced age
He saw Leonilda, and in a few days heher a dowry of a hundred thousand ducats Donna Lucrezia went to live with her daughter Though the nificently, he found it difficult to spend ed all his relations in his immense palace; there were three fah they were co with impatience the death of the head of the family, as they would then share his riches Thean heir; and these hopes he could no longer entertain However, he loved his wife none the less, while shedisposition
The marquis was a reat secret, as free thought was not appreciated at Salerno
Consequently, any outsider would have taken the household for a truly Christian one, and the marquis took care to adopt in appearance all the prejudices of his fellow-countrymen
Donna Lucrezia told arden, where her husband had sent us after a long conversation on subjects which could not have been of any interest to the ladies Nevertheless, they did not leave us for a hted were they to find that the enial spirit