In spite of Don Gennaro's wish to go out, he had to wait five minutes more. A little old woman, neatly dressed in black, a lady's-maid, had arrived, bringing an introductory note from Signora Parascandolo. Looking around her, she spoke to Don Gennaro in a whisper, and he listened with a fatherly, amiable smile. Then she timidly showed him something in a case, wrapped first in black cloth and then paper, which he would not even look at. He pushed it away, but not contemptuously. Then, after a few words to the old woman, he signed to her to keep silence, as she wished to begin her speech again, and he went to the desk, took out money, counted it, and handed it in an envelope to her. She waited to thank him, but he, to cut her short, asked:
'Not very well,' the old woman said, with a sigh.
In a few minutes the victoria bore easy, contented Don Gennaro Parascandolo to the Carracciolo promenade, where all his debtors, past, present, and future, greeted him with smiles and raised hats; and he smiled and bowed in return.
Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti read that letter over eight or ten times before putting it in her pocket. She was working at her lace alone in the bare large room, thinking over what was in it, for she knew the words by heart already. She saw it before her eyes, going over its meaning in her mind. So the slender bobbins slipped from her hands while she dreamt.
The letter was honest and frank. It said that, as a doctor and friend, he once more advised her to leave that lonely old house where she just vegetated. He begged she would deign to accept a humble, plain offer of hospitality in the country, in the village and home he was born in, where his mother lived alone piously. Donna Bianca Maria Cavalcanti should not despise this offer so frankly made. She could go down there with Margherita. The air was good, the country around fresh and green; it was an agreeable solitude. Dr. Amati could not go because of his work; but his mother would be sure to be very fond of her. She would be quite cured down there in that lifegiving, bright air. He implored her tenderly not to say 'No,' to believe in his devotion. He could not hide the real state of her health from her. Travel and country air were necessaries of life to her.