He was believed to be living still, but he had shrunk to a small black spot in Madame Grandoni's life, and for ten years she had not mentioned his name.

She wore a light flaxen wig, which was never very artfully adjusted, but this mattered little, as she made no secret of it.

She used to say, "I was not always so ugly as this; as a young girl I had beautiful golden hair, very much the color of my wig." She had worn from time immemorial an old blue satin dress, and a white crape shawl embroidered in colors; her appearance was ridiculous, but she had an interminable Teutonic pedigree, and her manners, in every presence, were easy and jovial, as became a lady whose ancestor had been cup-bearer to Frederick Barbarossa.

Thirty years' observation of Roman society had sharpened her wits and given her an inexhaustible store of anecdotes, but she had beneath her crumpled bodice a deep-welling fund of Teutonic sentiment, which she communicated only to the objects of her particular favor.

Rowland had a great regard for her, and she repaid it by wishing him to get married.