"Has the Pope a great family?" asked the widow.
And the young man answered as if the question might have been better worded,--
"I don't mean that," said the lady; "I mean has he a wife and children?"
"I don't approve of that," said the lady.
She could scarcely have spoken more foolishly, or asked sillier questions; but what did all that signify when her daughter looked over her shoulder with that most winning smile?
Herr Alfred talked of the brilliant skies of Italy, and its cloud-capped hills; the blue Mediterranean; the soft South; the beauty which could only be rivalled by the blue eyes of the females of the North. And this was said pointedly; but she who ought to have understood it did not allow it to be seen that she had detected any compliment in his words, and this was also charming.
"Italy!" sighed some. "Travelling!" sighed others. "Charming, charming!"
"Well, when I win the fifty-thousand-dollar prize in the lottery," said the widow, "we shall set off on our travels too--my daughter and I; and you, Herr Alfred, shall be our escort. We shall all three go, and a few other friends will go with us, I hope;" and she bowed invitingly to them all round, so that each individual might have thought, "It is I she wishes to accompany her." "Yes, we will go to Italy, but not where the robbers are; we will stay in Rome, or only go by the great high roads, where people are safe, of course."
And the daughter heaved a gentle sigh. How much can there not lie in a slight sigh, or be supposed to lie in it! The young man put a world of feeling into it; the two blue eyes that had beamed on him that evening concealed the treasure--the treasure of heart and of mind, richer far than all the glories of Rome; and when he left the party he was over head and ears in love with the widow's pretty daughter.
The widow's house became the house of all others most visited by Herr Alfred, the sculptor. People knew that it could not be for the mother's sake he sought it so often, although he and she were always the speakers; it must be for the daughter's sake he went. She was called Kala, though christened Karen Malene: the two names had been mutilated, and thrown together into the one appellation, _Kala_. She was very beautiful, but rather silly, some people hinted, and rather indolent. She was certainly a very late riser in the morning.