A Lady of Rome by F. Marion Crawford

The workmen were very busy at the Palazzo Montalto, and the rich widow from Chicago who occupied one of the large apartments was a little nervous, for there is a clause in all leases of portions of Roman palaces to the effect that the owner may turn any tenant out at short notice if he needs the rooms for his own use; and as the good lady had not the slightest idea of the real size of the place, she had long supposed that she was living in the state apartment.

But she need not have disturbed herself and her friends about that. Montalto would as soon have let the place where his mother and his wife had lived with him as he would have put up his titles at auction. He had sent orders that the vast suite was to be got ready in a month's time, and as no one had expected that he would ever come back to live there, the accumulation of dust was found to be portentous. Moreover, all the carpets had disappeared, no one knew how, the upholstered furniture was all moth-eaten, the window fastenings would not work, the mirrors were hopelessly tarnished, and the ceiling of the ballroom had been badly damaged by the bursting of a water-pipe in the apartment over it.