Transcriber's Note:
The original publication of Pietro Ghisleri does not include a table ofcontents. For the reader's ease of navigation in the html version of theebook, a list with hyperlinks to each chapter has been included (here) at the endof the book.
PIETRO GHISLERI
PIETRO GHISLERI
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "THE THREE FATES," ETC.
New York
MACMILLAN & CO.
AND LONDON
1893
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1892,
By MACMILLAN & CO.
Norwood Press:
J.S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
[Pg 1]
PIETRO GHISLERI.
CHAPTER I.
The relation of two step-sisters is unusual. When theHonourable Mrs. Carlyon came to Rome twenty yearsago, a young widow and the mother of a little girl namedLaura, she did not foresee the complications which hersecond marriage was to produce. She was a good womanin her way, and if she had guessed what it would meanto be the step-mother of Adele Braccio she might havehesitated before marrying Camillo of that name, commonlyknown as the Prince of Gerano. For the Princehad also been married before, and his first wife had lefthim this one child, Adele, who was only a year and ahalf older than little Laura Carlyon. No children wereborn to the Gerano couple, and the two girls were broughtup together as though they were sisters. The Princeand Princess were deeply attached to each other and tothem both, so that for many years Casa Gerano wasjustly looked upon as a model household.
Mrs. Carlyon was very poor when she came to Rome.Her husband had been a careless, good-humoured, andrather reckless younger son, and when he broke his neckin coming down the Gross Glockner he left his widowabout as much as men of his stamp generally leave totheir families; to wit, a fearful and wonderful confusionof unpaid debts and a considerable number of promisesto pay money, signed by persons whose promises were notof much consequence, even when clearly set down on[Pg 2]paper. It seems to be a peculiarity of poor and good-naturedmen that they will lend whatever money theyhave to impecunious friends in distress rather than useit for the paying of the just debts they owe their tailors.
Gerano was rich. It does not by any means followthat Mrs. Carlyon married him for his money, thoughshe could not have married him without it. She fell inlove with him. He, on his part, having made a marriageof interest when he took his first wife, and having ledby no means a very peaceful existence with the deceasedPrincess, considered that he had earned the right toplease himself, and accordingly did so. Moreover, Mrs.Carlyon was a Catholic, which singularly fac