What a transcendent coquette! . . . But _basta cosi_ as
she used to say. I meant to go tonight to Casa Salvi, but I couldn't
bring myself to the point. I don't know what I'm afraid of; I used to be
in a hurry enough to go there once. I suppose I am afraid of the very
look of the place--of the old rooms, the old walls. I shall go tomorrow
night. I am afraid of the very echoes.
10th.--She has the most extraordinary resemblance to her mother. When I
went in I was tremendously startled; I stood starting at her. I have
just come home; it is past midnight; I have been all the evening at Casa
Salvi. It is very warm--my window is open--I can look out on the river
gliding past in the starlight. So, of old, when I came home, I used to
stand and look out. There are the same cypresses on the opposite hills.
Poor young Stanmer was there, and three or four other admirers; they all
got up when I came in. I think I had been talked about, and there was
some curiosity. But why should I have been talked about? They were all
youngish men--none of them of my time. She is a wonderful likeness of
her mother; I couldn't get over it. Beautiful like her mother, and yet
with the same faults in her face; but with her mother's perfect head and
brow and sympathetic, almost pitying, eyes.
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