Veronica was glad to get back to the fire in her own room, and to feel
dry again--for seeing so much water had given her the sensation of being
drenched. And she sat down to think over what had happened in the
morning, trying to understand her own disappointment, because she
believed that she had expected nothing, and therefore that she could not
be disappointed. She was very glad to get back to her own room. So far
as she at all knew what a home meant, the Palazzo Macomer was home to
her, and she had no distinct recollection of any other. Gregorio and
Matilde and Bosio were her own family, so far as she had ever known what
to understand by the word. They were more familiar to her than any other
people in the world possibly could be, and if she felt that she had
little affection for her aunt and uncle, yet she knew that there was a
bond; and she was sincerely attached to Bosio for his own sake.
She had photographs of all three on the mantelpiece, in silver
frames,--that of her aunt standing in the middle, and one of the men on
either side. She looked at Bosio's, taking it down from its place. She
looked at it critically, and seeing a speck of dust on the glass, just
over the face, she passed her handkerchief over it, polishing the
surface, and looking at it again. From the photograph any one would
have said that Bosio was a handsome man, for he photographed well, as
the phrase goes. His clear, pale complexion, his well-cut, refined
features, his smooth, thick, silky hair looked singularly well against
the smoked background, and had at once the strength and the transparency
which make a good photograph by adding an illusion of relief to the
flatness of mere outline and light and shade.
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