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Perpetua kept silence, but continually found new pretexts for

resuming the conversation; so that the poor man was obliged to

suppress every complaint at the loss of such or such a thing, as

she would say, "Go and find it at such a person's house, who has

it, and who would not have kept it until now if he had not known

what kind of a man he had to deal with."

But here we will leave poor Don Abbondio, having more important

things to speak of than his fears, or the misery of a few

villagers from a transient disaster like this.

CHAPTER XXXI.