I should be guilty of insincerity if I concealed that the two hours which intervened between the banquet were somewhat wearying. It was too hot to walk out, nor was there any shade in the possessione; we had exhausted our little topics of conversation with our hostess, who was, besides, much occupied with her son; and no resource appeared but to sit in the apartment where the cloth was being laid with indescribable clatter both of plates and tongues—a very small room on the other side of the kitchen, furnished with a table and benches, from which the bed had been removed for the occasion—or walk into the kitchen itself, and contemplate the preparations for dinner.
Our party had been increased by the young _curato_, the son of a neighbouring contadino, who seemed rather agitated at the presence of so many ladies, and apparently looked for countenance and protection to the count, who having but recently returned from completing his education at an ecclesiastical seminary, had not yet learned to manifest that utter contempt for the priestly office which the youth of Italy generally display. Madame V——, who had a great respect for all spiritual authority, also hastened to the rescue, and engaged the poor priest in a conversation about his parishioners and the state of his church, on which he talked very fluently; but unfortunately, on her proceeding to tell him of various missions to Madagascar and China, in which she took great interest, he showed himself so completely at fault, apparently considering she alluded to some towns in the Turkish dominions, that she hastened to change the subject, to prevent our discovering any further deficiencies.
Meantime the count, who, by the by, was not a very brilliant specimen of the Anconitan gioventù, acquitted himself of his arduous duties with tolerable ease, notwithstanding that the trammels of his education still hung about him, and he looked rather too demure and artificial; above all, he was dazzled by the spectacle of four or five girls, who laughed, talked, ventured to express an opinion, and did not keep their eyes immovably cast down. He certainly did not get on so well with us as with his tenant; we had very few subjects of interest in common; his family was one of the most strict and old-fashioned in Ancona, and his mother and sisters were rarely seen in society, or even beyond their own walls. We remarked to him that we never met them out, and he said that his mother disliked walking, and did not approve of trusting her daughters with any one but herself; so they only went to mass on Sundays and _feste_; and then in the afternoon, by way of taking the air, as well as for recreation, they repaired to a terrace on the roof of their house, from whence they enjoyed a distant view of the public gardens outside the Porta Pia, with all their promenaders, and the Corso delle Carrozze. Remembering the scanty rows of trees and patches of brambles dignified by this appellation, as well as the half-dozen antediluvian equipages therein displayed, it was scarcely possible to refrain from smiling; but as he spoke in perfect seriousness, I was compelled to check all tendency to mirth, and prosecute my inquiries. Why did not he, then, sometimes escort his sisters? He looked astonished, and replied, that his mother did not think this proper—other young men, his friends, might join them—in fact, it was not according to their ideas. This was a trait of manners so unique as to surprise even my cousins, accustomed as they were to the code of Ancona propriety; but they listened with provoking equanimity, and seemed more diverted at my amazement than at anything else. “These poor people understand nothing of domestic life, or the happiness of domestic intercourse,” whispered Lucy, pityingly; “brothers and sisters are very different here from what they are in England.”