He trimmed his white beard in imitation of his master's--broad and square--and his words were few and to the point.
No one was ever at home in the Palazzo Saracinesca in those days; there were no ladies in the house; it was a man's establishment, and there was something severely masculine in the air of the gloomy courtyards surrounded by dark archways, where not a single plant or bit of colour relieved the ancient stone.

The pavement was clean and well kept, a new flagstone here and there showing that some care was bestowed upon maintaining it in good repair; but for any decoration there was to be found in the courts, the place might have been a fortress, as indeed it once was.

The owners, father and son, lived in their ancestral home in a sort of solemn magnificence that savoured of feudal times.

Giovanni was the only son of five-and-twenty years of wedlock.

His mother had been older than his father, and had now been dead some time.