TOMASO AND I.
The next day my amanuensis bade me good-morning in her former pleasant
manner, but without turning toward me seated herself quickly at the
table, and took the manuscript from the drawer. "Oh, ho!" I thought,
"then you can speak; and it was not the rules which made you behave in
that way, but your own pique, which has worn off a little." I glanced at
her as she intently looked over the work of the day before, and I was
considering whether or not it would be fitting for me to show that there
might be pique on one side of the grating as well as on the other, when
suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by a burst of laughter,--girlish,
irrepressible laughter. With the manuscript in her hands, my nun
actually leaned back in her chair and laughed so heartily that I wonder
my grandmother did not hear her.
"I declare," she said, turning to me, her eyes glistening with tears of
merriment, "this is the funniest thing I ever saw. Why, you have
actually separated those poor lovers for life, and crushed every hope in
the properest way. And then all the rest about commerce! I wouldn't have
believed you could do it."
"What do you mean?" I exclaimed. "You showed no surprise when you wrote
it."
Again she laughed.
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