Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.
"Suppose I offered you that?" continued the steward. "And
suppose I only ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve
refreshments in a beautiful room to the company at the Marquis
Melani's grand ball? What should you say to that?"
Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked more
bewildered than before.
"You must have heard of the ball," said the steward, pompously;
"the poorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of
the whole city."
Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must
have confessed that "the talk of the whole city" had now no
interest for her. The last news from Pisa that had appealed to
her sympathies was the news of the Countess d'Ascoli's death, and
of Fabio's departure to travel in foreign countries. Since then
she had heard nothing more of him. She was as ignorant of his
return to his native city as of all the reports connected with
the marquis's ball. Something in her own heart--some feeling
which she had neither the desire nor the capacity to analyze--had
brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which now connected
itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabio was
still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributed
to her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation
of revisiting the scene that had been associated with the first
great happiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her
life.
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