Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

11. CHAPTER XI: MRS PROUDIE'S RECEPTION--CONCLUDED (continued)

'Of course you know my sad story?' she continued.

The bishop didn't know a word of it. He knew, however, or thought he knew, that she couldn't walk into a room like other people, and so made the most of that. He put on a look of ineffable distress, and said that he was aware how God had afflicted her.

The signora just touched the corner of her eyes with the most lovely of pocket-handkerchiefs. Yes, she said--she had been very sorely tried--tried, she thought, beyond the common endurance of humanity; but while her child was left to her, everything was left. 'Oh! My lord,' she exclaimed, 'you must see the infant--the last bud of a wondrous tree: you must let a mother hope that you will lay your holy hands on her innocent head, and consecrate her for female virtues. May I hope it?' said she, looking into the bishop's eye, and touching the bishop's arm with her hand.

The bishop was but a man, and said she might. After all, what was it but a request that he would confirm her daughter?--a request, indeed, very unnecessary to make, as he should do so as a matter of course, if the young lady came forward in the usual way.

'The blood of Tiberius,' said the signora, in all but a whisper; 'the blood of Tiberius flows in her veins. She is the last of the Neros!'

The bishop had heard of the last of the Visigoths, and had floating in his brain some indistinct idea of the last of the Mohicans, but to have the last of the Neros thus brought before him for a blessing was very staggering. Still he liked the lady: she had a proper way of thinking, and talked with more propriety than her brother. But who were they? It was now quite clear that that blue madman with the silky beard was not a Prince Vicinironi. The lady was married, and was of course one of the Vicinironis by right of the husband. So the bishop went on learning.

'When will you see her?' said the signora with a start.