"Is she hesitating
still?" said Father Rocco to himself.
Just as the words passed his lips, the white mantilla was waved
out of the window.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
Even the master-stroke of replacing the treacherous Italian
forewoman by a French dressmaker, engaged direct from Paris, did
not at first avail to elevate the great Grifoni establishment
above the reach of minor calamities. Mademoiselle Virginie had
not occupied her new situation at Pisa quite a week before she
fell ill. All sorts of reports were circulated as to the cause of
this illness; and the Demoiselle Grifoni even went so far as to
suggest that the health of the new forewoman had fallen a
sacrifice to some nefarious practices of the chemical sort, on
the part of her rival in the trade. But, however the misfortune
had been produced, it was a fact that Mademoiselle Virginie was
certainly very ill, and another fact that the doctor insisted on
her being sent to the baths of Lucca as soon as she could be
moved from her bed.
Fortunately for the Demoiselle Grifoni, the Frenchwoman had
succeeded in producing three specimens of her art before her
health broke down. They comprised the evening-dress of yellow
brocaded silk, to which she had devoted herself on the morning
when she first assumed her duties at Pisa; a black cloak and hood
of an entirely new shape; and an irresistibly fascinating
dressing-gown, said to have been first brought into fashion by
the princesses of the blood-royal of France.
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