CALCAGNO. By heavens, it is so. Sacco! some strange event has happened
here.

VERRINA (placing two chairs). Be seated.

SACCO. Your looks, Verrina, fill us with apprehension.

CALCAGNO. I never saw you thus before--Bertha is in tears, or your grief
would have seemed to presage our country's ruin.

VERRINA. Ruin! Pray sit down. (They both seat themselves.)

CALCAGNO. My friend, I conjure you----

VERRINA. Listen to me.

CALCAGNO (to SACCO). I have sad misgivings.

VERRINA. Genoese! you both know the antiquity of my family. Your
ancestors were vassals to my own. My forefathers fought the battles of
the state, their wives were patterns of virtue. Honor was our sole
inheritance, descending unspotted from the father to the son. Can any
one deny it?

SACCO. No.

CALCAGNO. No one, by the God of heaven!

VERRINA. I am the last of my family. My wife has long been dead. This
daughter is all she left me. You are witnesses, my friends, how I have