itnessed worse things in this house. Now it is your turn again: In what
city of my home did you meet the signorina?"

"In Rome, alone and under an assumed name. Isabella--a Holland girl! Pray
go on with your story, Belotti; I won't interrupt you again. What had the
child done, that her own father--"

"He is the wildest of all the wild Hoogstratens. Perhaps you may have
seen men like him in Italy--in this country you might seek long for such
a hurricane. You must not think him an evil-disposed man, but a word that
goes against the grain, a look askance will rob him of his senses, and
things are done which he repents as soon as they are over. The signorina
received her scar in the same way. She was a mere child, and of course
ought not to have touched fire-arms, nevertheless she did whenever she
could, and once a pistol went off and the bullet struck one of the best
hunting-dogs. Her father heard the report and, when he saw the animal
lying on the ground and the pistol at the little girl's feet, he seized
it and with the sharp-edged handle struck--"

"A child, his own daughter!" exclaimed Wilhelm indignantly.

"People are differently constituted," Belotti continued. "Some, the class
to which you probably belong, cautiously consider before they speak or
act; the second reflect a long time and, when they are ready, pour forth
a great many words, but rarely act at all; while the third, and at their
head the Hoogstraten family, heap deeds on deeds, and if they ever think,
it is only after the act is accomplished. If they then find that they
have committed an injustice, pride comes in and forbids them to confess,
atone for, or recall it. So one misfortune follows another; but the
gentlemen pay no heed and find forgetfulness in drinking and gambling,
carousing and hunting. There are plenty of debts, but all anxiety
concerning them is left to the creditors, and boys who receive no
inheritance are supplied with a place at court or in the army; for the
girls, thank God, there is no lack of convents, if they confess our holy
religion, and both have expectations from rich aunts and other blood
relations, who die without children."

"You paint in vivid colors."

But they are true, and they all suit the Junker; though to be sure he
need not keep his property for sons, since his wife gave him none. He met
her at court in Brussels, and she came from Parma."

"Did you know her?"

"She died before I came to the padrona's house. Th