After the usual inquiries concerning the children and her son-in-law, the old lady turns again to us, and, for the fiftieth time, reverts to a project she has much at heart—that of arranging a _matrimonio_ for one of my cousins; and again, for the fiftieth time, she is gravely reminded that an insuperable barrier exists to anything of the kind. Any allusion to controversial subjects being, by long-established consent, interdicted between my uncle's family and their Anconitan acquaintances, the marchesa is fain to content herself with a sigh and expressive shrug of the shoulders; and tapping me on the cheek, inquires if I, too, have such an objection to change my religion and _farmi Cattolica_ as my poor cousins are imbued with. “Ah, _carina_,” said she, confidentially, “I could get good matches for you all, if you had not these unhappy scruples!”
However, I laughingly assure her I am as obdurate as the rest, and we rise to take our leave. The same process of kissing is gone through as when we came in, and we are asked anxiously whether our _cameriera_ is in waiting, as it invariably shocks her rigid ideas of propriety that we should cross the street unattended. On being answered in the negative, the marchesa insists on summoning a grey-headed old man, dressed in rusty black, denominated her _valet de chambre_, and confiding us to his care to see us safely to our home, she especially charges him not to leave us till the door is opened, as if some danger lurked upon the very confines of our threshold.
This is only one among the many instances of the extraordinary restraint exercised in Italy upon the freedom of unmarried women. A girl of fifteen, if married, is at liberty to walk about alone, while I have known a woman of forty—the only Italian old maid, by the by, it has been my lot to meet—who was not allowed to move a step without at least one trusty servant as her body-guard.
Our remonstrances and entreaties are unheeded, and we depart with our veteran escort: the marchesa is so pleased that she kisses us again, and notwithstanding her infirmities, insists on tottering across the great hall and accompanying us nearly to the door; while the dirty man-servant, after showing us out, with an anxious, perturbed expression, returns to his mistress, to replenish her _scaldino_, give her any fragment of news he has collected, and comment upon our extraordinary English infatuation.