The woman had given her a black frock without consulting her.
Though Veronica liked her, and knew that she could rely on her devotion,
she was not one of those Italian girls who readily confide in their
serving-women, and she had told Elettra nothing about the projected
marriage, and she said nothing of it now, though she was mourning her
betrothed husband. But she told Elettra to go out and buy a little crape
to put on the black frock, and to send for dressmakers to make mourning
things quickly.
The confusion in the house had subsided into stillness. Bosio Macomer
was in his coffin. The servants were exhausted, and there was no one to
direct. Gregorio had been heard laughing wildly in his room, and a
frightened chambermaid said that he was going mad. Elettra had great
difficulty in getting something to eat, which she brought to Veronica's
room with a glass of wine.
The girl's first outbreak of sorrow ebbed to a melancholy placidity, as
the hours went by. She got her prayer-book, and read certain prayers for
the dead. When her maid had gone out to buy the crape, she knelt down
and said prayers that were not in the book, very earnestly and simply;
and now and then her tears flowed afresh for a little while. She took
the artificial gardenia and put it away in a safe place, after she had
kissed it; and she wondered when she remembered how she had blushed last
night when Bosio kissed her that once--that only once that ever was to
be.
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