His family was now limited to Sophia
and his wife. He had had another daughter, fair and amiable as
Sophia; but the sad school of the world, and the all-powerful empire
of love, had untimely laid her low. The Signora Cadori, though still
young, was already on the brink of the grave. The grief that preyed
on her life, and especially the lamentable end of her first-born, had
brought on paralysis. She could no longer move without assistance.
One other person formed part of the family, without being connected
with it by relationship--a woman who seemed at first sight to have
reached her seventieth year, so slow and difficult were her
movements. Her words savoured a little of obscurity, and her
countenance was rather repulsive. She was a Milanese. Having come to
the baths in Padua, she had taken lodgings in Cadori's house. She
seldom spoke, and paid no attention to what was passing around her.
She always seemed unconscious of the loud and angry language of
Cadori, which was proving fatal to the neglected wife and the
oppressed daughter.
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