Upon this system nine-tenths of the land in the Pontifical States was held, and much of the same land is so held to-day, in spite of the modern tenant-law, for reasons which will be clearly explained in another part of this history.  Corona saw and understood that the evil was very great.  She discussed the matter with her steward, or ministro as he was called, who was none other than the aforesaid middleman; and the more she discussed the question, the more hopeless the question appeared.  The steward held a contract from her dead husband for a number of years.  He had regularly paid the yearly sums agreed upon, and it would be impossible to remove him for several years to come.  He, of course, was strenuously opposed to any change, and did his best to make himself appear as an angel of mercy and justice, presiding over a happy family of rejoicing peasants in the heart of a terrestrial paradise.  Unfortunately for himself, however, he had not at first understood the motive which prompted Corona’s inquiries.  He supposed in the beginning that she was not satisfied with the amount of rent he paid, and that at the expiration of his contract she intended to raise the sum; so that, on the first occasion when she sent for him, he had drawn a piteous picture of the peasant’s condition, and had expatiated with eloquence on his own poverty, and on the extreme difficulty of collecting any rents at all.  It was not until he discovered that Corona’s chief preoccupation was for the welfare of her tenants that he changed his tactics, and endeavoured to prove that all was for the best upon the best of all possible estates.

Then, to his great astonishment, Corona informed him that his contract would not be renewed, and that at the expiration of his term she would collect her rents herself.  It had taken her long to understand the situation, but when she had comprehended it, she made up her mind that something must be done.  If her fortune had depended solely upon the income she received from the Astrardente lands, she would have made up her mind to reduce herself to penury rather than allow things to go in the way they were going.  Fortunately she was rich, and if she had not all the experience necessary to deal with such matters, she had plenty of goodwill, plenty of generosity, and plenty of money.  In her simple theory of agrarian economy the best way to improve an estate seemed to be to spend the income arising from it directly upon its improvement, until she could take the whole management of it into her own hands.  The trouble, as she thought, was that there was too little money among the peasants; the best way to help them was to put money within their reach.  The only question was how to do this without demoralising them, and without increasing their liabilities towards the ministro or middleman.

Then she sent for the curate.  From him she learned that the people did well enough in the summer, but that the winter was dreaded.  She asked why.  He answered that they were not provident; that the land system was bad; and that even if they saved anything the ministro would take it from them.  She inquired whether he thought it possible to induce them to be more thrifty.  He thought it might be done in ten years, but not in one.