"
It had always been a thing to see. So, at least, said those who were
privileged to know. There were tropical strains in her blood-strains
from some flowery land in the Caribbean Sea-strains which refused to
mingle in harmonious fashion with the white elements in her ancestry.
She was neither lovely nor lovable, and it was regarded as a kindly
dispensation of Heaven that some malformation of the lower limbs kept
her confined to her boudoir, where no visitors ever called save a few
misguided newcomers to the island who were unaware of her
idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies, due to the enforced inactivity of
her feet, took the form of a grotesque activity of the tongue. Her
infirmity preventing her from learning how things really stood, she let
her phantasy run riot on the occasional reports which reached the
villa; and that phantasy, nourished by lack of physical exercise,
indulged in a love of scandal-mongering which bordered, and sometimes
trespassed, on the pathological. She distilled scandal from every pore,
and in such liberal quantities that even the smiling and good-natured
Don Francesco once spoke of her as "the serpent in the Paradise.
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