ma] 
 ty
 
 (CARNATION i 
 
 The Sister of a Saint 
 
 And Other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 GRACE ELLERY CHANNING 
 
 CHICAGO 
 STONE & KIMBALL 
 
 MDCCCXCV
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY 
 STONE AND KIMBALL
 
 LOVINGLY DEDICATED 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
 2061S29
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SISTER OF A SAINT 3 
 
 THE HOUSE ON THE HILL-TOP 37 
 
 THE LUCKY NUMBER 83 
 
 COULEUR DE ROSE 115 
 
 A STRANGE DINNER-PARTY 1 85 
 
 THE BASKET OF ANITA 225
 
 THE SISTER OF A SAINT.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 SUOR' AMALIA stood at the window, and her 
 face was troubled as she watched Bianca take 
 down the shutters of the shop window opposite. 
 
 " There has not been a soul near for days," 
 she thought; " something must be done." 
 
 The red-painted posts on either side of the 
 door had on them in gold letters, " Parruchiere," 
 and there was a scraggy muslin curtain plaited 
 within the one window, which was put there 
 when the shop was new. The door stood open 
 to admit the light and air, and through it she 
 could see the barber's chair and the brushes, 
 combs, and razors neatly in a row. 
 
 Suor' Amalia watched Bianca going through 
 the daily feint of arranging where nothing was 
 disarranged, while Nino followed her noise-
 
 4 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 lessly about, not to disturb his father who was 
 lying ill in the room behind the shop. 
 
 "There is trouble everywhere," Suor' Amalia 
 was thinking as she raised her eyes to the win- 
 dows of the story above. 
 
 Up there where the lace curtains were, the 
 little sposina lay on the sofa. At first she used 
 to sit in the great chair by the window, but now 
 her pale face could just be seen propped among 
 the piled-up cushions. 
 
 It was such a little while since the little sposina 
 (she is so small that two diminutives are not too 
 much for her) went away. She was not eighteen : 
 her soft hair fell in short curls about her face, 
 and as she came out in her white bride's dress 
 and veil with orange-blossoms, her eyes were 
 bright with childish delight. Bianca, from be- 
 hind the curtain, had watched her : the sposina 
 was not prettier than she herself had been five 
 years ago, and her husband was not to be com- 
 pared with the barber. Bianca watched until 
 they came back from the church and the sindaco, 
 and the sposina went away to her new home in 
 another city, wearing a brown silk travelling- 
 dress which trailed on the ground, and a tall hat 
 with ribbon bows which stood up above her face
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 5 
 
 and made it look younger than ever. Now the 
 child was a Signora. 
 
 Bianca had kept herself well hidden behind 
 the curtain. If they had seen her they would 
 have said, " There is Bianca, who ran away with 
 a married man and was never a sposaj she 
 would like to be the spostna." 
 
 The Suor' Amalia had seen, however; there 
 was not much which escaped her eyes. 
 
 On that day Bianca had bitterly envied the 
 sposina; but she did not envy her now. It was 
 only six months before the child came home, 
 looking more a child than ever as her husband 
 lifted her out of the carriage in his arms. She 
 smiled up at him with her wan little face as he 
 did so, for she loves him, or, as they say in 
 Tuscany, " she wishes him well." 
 
 Bianca saw it all in one swift glance, and she 
 shuddered. 
 
 " She wishes him well, and she will have to 
 go." 
 
 She herself went in and looked long at the 
 barber, who slept with a scarlet spot on each 
 thin cheek. Would he also have to go ? for 
 they too wish each other well. 
 
 Every day she asked herself that question,
 
 6 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 and every day she glanced up at the sposinds 
 window as she took down the shutters in the 
 morning and put them up at night, a useless 
 labor, since no one came to the shop. And 
 day by day she grew more silent. 
 
 " So many excuses," she said only, as she 
 glided in and out of the Suor' Amalia's back yard 
 with water jars to fill or pails to empty, for 
 Suor' Amalia's yard stands just across, and has 
 in it water and sinks and many other neighbor- 
 hood conveniences. In some mysterious way, 
 Suor' Amalia's house and yard stand just across 
 from everywhere, and have in them wherewith to 
 meet everybody's needs. Indeed it is because of 
 this peculiarity that she began to be called, at 
 first jestingly, " La Suora, the Sister," as if she 
 were a nun, and then "Suor' Amalia." Now 
 even her husband calls her so, and she herself 
 has almost forgotten it is not her baptized 
 name. 
 
 Suor' Amalia has shaken her head daily over 
 Bianca, who grows whiter and whiter. There 
 has not been a soul in the shop for days, Suor' 
 Amalia knows. Why are windows given us, if 
 not to watch over our neighbors a little ? 
 
 " It is good fortune that the child is always
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 7 
 
 robust," she thought constantly. Suor' Amalia's 
 own are under the sod, four of them, and dead 
 within a week, as God willed. It is one reason 
 why food will not stay in Suor' Amalia's house. 
 " There are seven of us to feed," she reminds 
 Pietro, when his eyes open in wonder that a 
 quintal of potatoes and all the flour and polenta 
 can have gone so soon. One day the cupboard 
 is full, and the next, where can all that flour 
 and salt fish have gone ? Suor' Amalia has 
 always one answer to these wonderings : " God 
 has found a use for it elsewhere." Moreover, 
 she says she notices that when she takes any- 
 thing from a sack to give away, the sack seems 
 fuller to her afterwards ; which does not explain 
 to Pietro why they empty so fast nevertheless. 
 He often thinks in that head of his, which is not 
 quick, but good and sound like his heart, that 
 the four who are dead eat much more than the 
 three who are alive, especially when one thinks 
 of Isolina, who pecks like a bird. 
 
 The Suor' Amalia has been thinking of Iso- 
 lina very steadily for days past, every time, in 
 fact, that she has looked at the house across the 
 way. She was thinking of her now, as she 
 crossed the room and knocked lightly at a door,
 
 8 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 listening a moment first to be sure that Isolina 
 was not praying. 
 
 " Isolina." 
 
 " Enter," said a voice, and Suor' Amalia 
 entered. 
 
 " Isolina, I am troubled about those two." 
 
 Isolina was sitting sewing. She was dressed 
 in black, and there was a rosebush and a crucifix 
 on the table before her, and a little golden cross 
 on a black cord at her throat. The Suor' 
 Amalia might be thirty-five, she looked fifty; 
 but the angels of heaven could not tell the age 
 of Isolina. On the waste of that disfigured 
 face the years were not numbered. In reality 
 she was but twenty-five. 
 
 She did not ask, " Which two ? " instead she 
 looked at her sister, and there was a curious 
 mingling of determination and dread on the 
 Suora's face. 
 
 " Not a soul has been there," she went on, 
 however, " and moreover, there is not a soul who 
 would give a soldo. It is hard, after all, one 
 is human." 
 
 Still Isolina said nothing. Suor' Amalia 
 sighed. Isolina took a few stitches and her lips 
 moved silently.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 9 
 
 " And the sposina f " she asked quietly, pres- 
 ently. 
 
 Suor' Amalia shook her head. 
 
 " It is a hard thing," she said, " they wish 
 each other so well." 
 
 Isolina did not speak ; she took a few stitches 
 and broke off the thread. 
 
 " Here is the suit for Giacomo's boy," she 
 said abruptly. 
 
 Suor' Amalia looked approvingly at the 
 square patches in the blue cloth, and the bright 
 gilt buttons. Isolina took up two ragged 
 blouses; it was evident that she balanced a 
 moment in her mind which to patch into the 
 other ; having decided, she set rapidly about 
 it. Suor' Amalia, deep in thought, watched 
 her. Then, with a profound sigh, she took up 
 the blue suit and glanced again with a certain 
 wistfulness at her sister. 
 
 " It is such a beautiful day, Isolina." 
 
 Isolina made no reply. 
 
 " And it is so bad for the health to stay in 
 always." 
 
 Isolina sewed silently. 
 
 "What shall I buy for dinner?" 
 
 " What you will."
 
 IO The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 Suor' Amalia turned away with an impatient 
 sujh. 
 
 The trouble was still upon her face as she 
 took up a basket from the other room and dis- 
 appeared into a cupboard. When she reap- 
 peared her face was flushed, but once more 
 tranquil, and it was evident she had transferred 
 the weight from her heart to her basket, which 
 hung heavily. She paused irresolutely with 
 the patched suit in her hand, and then laid it 
 aside. 
 
 " Giacomo's boy had the last," she thought, 
 " and one must use one's own judgment. After 
 all it would be a hard world if there were only 
 saints in it." 
 
 Her handkerchief was already on her head, 
 and she had not even the trouble of opening 
 the door, which stood already open. Why shut 
 one's door at the risk of shutting out some one ? 
 
 Suor' Amalia was right; it was a beautiful 
 morning. The sun came warmly down, and 
 at the foot of the street the Mediterranean, 
 blue as a sapphire, leaped in the light. 
 
 Suor' Amalia glanced at the windows of the 
 house opposite as she passed, and wished both 
 the barber and the sposina were out in the
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 1 1 
 
 sun, yes, and Isolina as well. There is not 
 much resemblance between the pale sposina 
 and Isolina to the outward eye, but neverthe- 
 less the one makes her think of the other. For 
 it is not so many years since Isolina was a 
 sposina too, perhaps it would have been 
 better for her if she never had been. But so 
 it was ; the black gown and the white were 
 made, then came the hideous disease, wiping 
 out beauty and youth and leaving corruption. 
 "It might have been better if she had sent him 
 away then, as she at first wished," thought 
 Suor' Amalia, for the hundredth time re-living 
 the story ; " it was not possible he could wish 
 her well when she was become monstrous, 
 men were not like that," she had said. Ah, 
 yes, it might have been better ; but it is a hard 
 thing to be deaf to the crying of the heart. 
 
 To sew and pray, that was all that re- 
 mained to Isolina now. She had wished to 
 make herself a nun when that happened, but 
 even this was denied her. The malady which 
 forbade her to be a wife on earth forbade her 
 also to become a bride of Heaven. No convent 
 would receive her. So she made herself a nun 
 outside the cloister. And since she was too
 
 12 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 poor for other charities, she had made for her- 
 self a charity of mending the cast-off garments 
 of the poor, for the still poorer. There was 
 nothing so ragged but Isolina could patch it 
 somehow and make it cover some one's naked- 
 ness ; any more than there were ever so many 
 hungry ones but that Suor' Amalia could find at 
 least a bit of polenta for them. It was not of 
 this household that it could ever be written : 
 
 " I was an hungered and ye fed me not ; 
 naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick and in 
 prison, and ye visited me not" 
 
 Of what was past, Isolina never spoke. She 
 was an angel of patience, and surely blessed 
 were the house and the neighborhood in which 
 she dwelled. 
 
 " If only she would go out, and eat a little," 
 thought Suor' Amalia. But these were pre- 
 cisely what Isolina would not do, go out on 
 the streets ; and for days at a time she scarcely 
 ate enough to keep one's soul in one's body ; 
 and this tried Suor' Amalia so sorely that she 
 had oftener to accuse herself to her confessor 
 of impatience towards Isolina than of any 
 other sin. The Frate always said the same 
 thing.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 13 
 
 " Support your cross with patience, my 
 daughter; you have a saint in your home, 
 happy for you." 
 
 And Suor' Amalia knew it. All those fasts 
 and prayers, God alone knew how much 
 good they had done all the neighborhood first 
 and last. She herself was not the least of a 
 saint ; one cannot expect two in a family, 
 it would have its disadvantages, she candidly 
 thought ; but there was little which passed 
 in the still spirit of the younger that she did 
 not divine. She recalled the morning's con- 
 versation. 
 
 " She never forgets," thought Suor' Amalia, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 No, Isolina never forgot. At that very 
 moment she had stolen from her room, and 
 keeping out of sight herself, glanced stealthily 
 up at the sposina's window. The little white 
 face was not there ; all she could see was the 
 young husband bending over something and 
 speaking. No, not all, for suddenly two 
 thin small hands stretched up and met about 
 the young husband's neck and drew his head 
 lower, lower, lower. Isolina could see could 
 see through the walls of the house the
 
 14 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 white, eager face, with its great eyes looking 
 up ; and the thin hands drew the stooping head 
 still lower, till only its curls and the fingers 
 playing with them were visible above the win- 
 dow ledge. Suddenly they stopped playing. 
 Isolina closed her eyes ; she leaned against the 
 wall ; it was she who received upon her purple 
 lips that trembling of other lips in the inter- 
 minable kiss which blots out life and death and 
 all but immortality. But they were not the 
 lips of the young husband. Her own were hot 
 and dry ; she trembled from head to foot ; her 
 hands went up to the purple and swollen face, 
 and with a low cry she darted into the inner 
 room. 
 
 When Suor' Amalia returned she heard a 
 voice from that room, measured and calm. 
 
 " It is Isolina praying for the sick," she said 
 to herself after listening a moment, and she set 
 down her empty basket upon the table. As she 
 did so, she saw through the window Bianca put- 
 ting up the shutters, and added, " I do not be- 
 lieve there has been a soul there to-day either." 
 
 Juor' Amalia was right again ; there had not 
 been a soul there all day. The sick man's eyes 
 turned with a question in them when Bianca
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 15 
 
 went in; she shook her head slightly, and he 
 turned his away that she might not see the tears 
 of pure weakness. She did not need to see. A 
 while ago the smell of food cooking made him 
 sick; now there is no food to cook. Bianca 
 glanced once or twice around the room desper- 
 ately ; there was no sound but the ticking of the 
 little clock on the shelf. Everything else had 
 gone to the Monte di Pieta ; all the clothing not 
 actually needed to appear in on the street ; all 
 the bedclothing except the blankets ; there was 
 nothing left but the things in the shop (to part 
 with these would be suicide), and the clock. 
 And it is no longer a question of polenta ; he must 
 have broth. Bianca went determinedly to the 
 clock ; it had been spared till now because it 
 would bring so very little, and without it the 
 heavy days would be ten times longer ; she took 
 it down. At the sudden cessation of its ticking, 
 the sick man turned. He had no need to ask 
 what she was doing; there she stood with the 
 clock in her hands. A thin scarlet wave ran 
 over his cheek. Bianca said nothing, only drew 
 the blanket about him and looked a moment at 
 the wan face and closed eyes from under which 
 a tear stole. She wished him so well, but
 
 16 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 what was there to say? Silently she went out 
 with the clock under her shawl. 
 
 Then there was only the weak sobbing of the 
 sick man. He wished her so well, and it had 
 come to this. 
 
 On her way across the yard an hour later, 
 Bianca found herself confronted with Suor' 
 Amalia. She would have passed with so many 
 murmured excuses, but Suor' Amalia barred the 
 way with calm determination. 
 
 " There is no reason why you should not cook 
 your meals in my kitchen," she said tranquilly. 
 " Pietro goes out, and there is no one else 
 about." 
 
 Bianca paused with the water-jar in her hands. 
 She was as white as her name and it seemed to 
 Suor' Amalia she had grown thin overnight. 
 For a moment she did not speak, but regarded 
 Suor' Amalia as if she questioned her sanity. 
 
 " The smell must be bad for him, there 
 where you have no window," continued the 
 latter, " and it is only a step. It is a pity we 
 did not think of it sooner. 
 
 Bianca set down her jar suddenly. 
 
 "Suor' Amalia," she said, "you, of all peo- 
 ple " She who has not wept for years, weeps 
 torrents.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 17 
 
 Suor' Amalia said little ; she had never seen 
 that words were good for much. Slipping into 
 the house, she poured out a cup of coffee, 
 what one calls coffee, and presently, to her 
 own bewilderment and in spite of the choking 
 misery in her throat, Bianca found herself drink- 
 ing the Suora's coffee and talking, all together. 
 The Suor' Amalia had the whole story ; years of 
 silence overflowed in five minutes' speech. She 
 knew of the loneliness, the need, the impossi- 
 bility of help from any one, how many days it 
 was since any one came to the shop, and just 
 how many soldi the clock brought, together 
 with the fact that there was nothing else left to 
 sell, and the fear that he would be dead soon, and 
 how, above all, and through all and under all she 
 wished him passionately well, the man who was 
 her husband before God, but not before man. 
 
 " Before me, too," said Suor' Amalia firmly, 
 though a trifle pale as she said it. " Eat that 
 bread, Bianca, there is more." 
 
 " Suor' Amalia, you, of all people ! " stam- 
 mered Bianca. " Oh, if you knew ! " 
 
 " Yes, I," repeated Suor' Amalia, firmly. " If 
 you had gone from one to another, that would 
 be different ; and I don't say it was not a sin to 
 2
 
 l8 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 begin with ; but after all you have been through 
 
 it was a sin, of course, but " 
 
 " He has always said all the trouble came 
 from that ; because he had injured a saint, and 
 that it was no use to pray to any saint after 
 that, they were sure to take her part. But 
 Suor' Amalia, if you knew ! It was like a death 
 
 and we wished each other so well." 
 
 " I do know," answered Suor' Amalia. " One 
 is human, after all, and that other was perhaps 
 
 a mistake. But you cannot expect saints to 
 look at these things as we do ; it would be mak- 
 ing them too like ourselves." 
 
 " If we could have stayed away," said Bianca, 
 falteringly. " What it cost to come back ! but 
 when he fell ill the doctor said he must have his 
 native air or die. What could one do ? And 
 then to come here ! " 
 
 " Perhaps it was not all for nothing that you 
 were sent, Bianca," returned Suor' Amalia, 
 calmly, "Who can tell?" 
 
 " Perhaps. Do you know, Suor' Amalia '' 
 she broke off embarrassed. 
 
 Suor' Amalia waited reassuringly. 
 
 " I have thought I could n't help thinking, 
 if she is half a saint, as they all say, up there,
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 19 
 
 they would listen to her prayers, and if only 
 she would ask it, he might " she clasped her 
 hands. 
 
 " Now that is asking too much, Bianca," said 
 Suor' Amalia, with mild severity. 
 
 " But if she loved him " persisted the 
 woman, desperately. 
 
 "She might pray for his soul for she is a 
 saint," answered Suor' Amalia, " but as for any- 
 thing more, you are asking her to be a sinner." 
 
 " It is true," murmured Bianca, dejectedly. 
 
 " But one must have courage," said Suor' 
 Amalia, cheeringly, " and one must think a 
 little; that is what we who are not saints are 
 put here for, to help a little. Meantime, a 
 cup of coffee for him, though coffee is not good 
 perhaps for fever, but once in a way ; and 
 the boy had best come for a mouthful." 
 
 She had no more to say, but there is so 
 gigantic a difference between a full heart and 
 one that has overflowed as Bianca takes up 
 the water-jar again, it seems lighter, notwith- 
 standing that it is fresh filled. 
 
 " Some one will come perhaps this very day," 
 said Suor' Amalia, encouragingly ; " if not, one 
 must think a little."
 
 2O The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 For Suor' Amalia does nothing hastily ; she 
 has lived too long. 
 
 " What is that baggage doing in your house, 
 Suora ? " asked a sharp voice. 
 
 Suor' Amalia turned. Zia Anna was large 
 and fat, -with red face and square shoulders. 
 She looked after Bianca with a frown. 
 
 Suor' Amalia answered placidly : 
 
 " No matter what, Anna, she does not 
 trouble you, and the man is sick." 
 
 " Well, if I had not seen it with my own eyes 
 I would never have believed it ! With that 
 saint in there ! and you an honest woman, 
 you ought to be ashamed, Suor' Amalia. She 
 should never cross my threshold." 
 
 " I should be very contented if there were no 
 worse than she," replied the Suora, and her 
 face was severe. 
 
 " No worse ! " repeated Anna, her red cheeks 
 growing redder. " I should like to know what 
 is worse. Running away with a married man ! 
 she has got only what she deserves, and 
 when one thinks of that saint But it's no 
 use talking to you, Suor* Amalia ; you would 
 feed the diavolo himself if he came to you 
 hungry."
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 21 
 
 " Poverino ! why not ? " said Suor' Amalia, 
 tranquilly, " To be hungry makes many diavo- 
 lint, Anna." 
 
 " Oh, as for that " Anna shrugged her 
 shoulders. " But I must be going. There 's 
 the wash all standing, and with eight fem- 
 inine things and not a masculine one among 
 them, one imagines if I have time for gossip- 
 ing. Here is that bit for Maso's family, not 
 much, but each gives what he can, a centesimo 
 here and a soldo there, and the shoemaker put 
 in a whole franc." 
 
 Suor' Amalia's face softened as she held 
 the coppers in her hand. 
 
 " You are a good soul, Anna, and I 'm 
 afraid it goes hard to give it ?" 
 
 Anna laughed and shrugged her fat shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 " Altro ! Suor' Amalia, if one only gave 
 when it was easy, there 'd not be much giving. 
 One does what one can, for honest folk; I 'd 
 not take the bread out of my mouth for that 
 one " with a backward nod towards the 
 barber's shop. " Luigino has two days' work 
 every week now, and not a sick one in our ten. 
 A riverderla, Suor' Amalia."
 
 22 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 Suor" Amalia's face was very thoughtful as 
 she counted the coppers; it did not lose its 
 tranquillity however. She shut the money up 
 in a drawer. 
 
 "Anna's heart is better than her head," 
 she thought, as she listened to hear if Isolina 
 was praying, but there was no sound from 
 within. 
 
 " It will not be necessary to say anything 
 about it at present," she decided. 
 
 It was late that afternoon when Suor' 
 Amalia, having "thought a little," stepped 
 across the yard. The door opposite was ajar 
 to let in air and light, and Bianca sat within on 
 the earth floor. The barber lay, as he had 
 lain all day, with his eyes on the inner door, 
 listening to every foot that passed. Sometimes 
 one stopped and his heart gave a leap, would 
 they come in ? But they never did, and his 
 cheek grew hotter and hotter as the hours 
 passed. Now and then at some sharper sound 
 his eyes turned with their eternal question to 
 Bianca, who shook her head slightly in reply. 
 There was nothing to break the silence except 
 those passing feet, now that the clock was 
 eaten ; and he no longer asked the time, lest he
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 23 
 
 should seem to be thinking of dinner or supper. 
 Bianca sat absolutely impassive with fixed lips. 
 Through the open door she could see a boy 
 with a basket of oranges, crossing the yard. 
 They were for the sposinaj she could have 
 oranges, anything she wished. Bianca's pale 
 lips folded sternly together ; for a second time 
 she envied, bitterly envied, the sposina. 
 
 " The next piano" she said sharply to the 
 boy, as she rose to let Suor' Amalia in. 
 
 Suor' Amalia affected to notice nothing ; she 
 went at once to the sick man. 
 
 " Well, Luigi ? " she said cheerfully. 
 
 He tried vainly for a word ; instead his lips 
 trembled and his eyes filled. 
 
 " It is a little broth that is needed," said 
 Suor' Amalia, in a matter-of-fact way, " that 
 will set you right quickly." 
 
 Bianca looked at her. 
 
 "There will be no trouble about it," replied 
 Suor' Amalia, nodding calmly. " Somebody who 
 wishes you well is sending you a little money ; 
 it is not myself, Bianca, you need not look 
 at me like that. I cannot tell you the name, 
 but it is some one who wishes you well. You 
 shall have it in the morning ; meanwhile I will
 
 24 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 send a bit of broth ; you see, one should keep 
 one's courage." 
 
 " Suor' Amalia, you, of all people ! " stam- 
 mered the sick man. 
 
 But Bianca was looking at Suor' Amalia 
 with the strangest expression ; it was impossible 
 to evade that glance, the Suor' Amalia 
 looked calmly back. 
 
 "Suor' Amalia, do you mean that here 
 in this town is some one willing to lend us 
 this money ? " 
 
 " Securely ! " replied Suor' Amalia, mildly ; 
 " only it is not a loan, it does not have to be 
 paid back. There is not much, but with a little 
 broth and meat he will do very well, and it is 
 almost summer." 
 
 Suddenly Bianca bent over the bed. " Do 
 you hear ? to-morrow you can eat what you will." 
 
 A desire long repressed burnt in the sick 
 man's eyes. 
 
 "If it were not too dear, a little bit of 
 chicken ! " Every day he had imagined how 
 that would taste. His eyes and Bianca's met ; 
 then she raised hers to Suor' Amalia's. 
 
 " So many thanks ! " she said briefly ; but Suor' 
 Amalia was content.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 25 
 
 " Maso is doing very well now," she thought 
 to herself deliberately, as she recrossed the yard, 
 " and Anna has not so much sense as some ; 
 one must be wise for those who are foolish ; 
 besides, it will all be counted up to them some 
 day." 
 
 As she moved about the house with an even 
 step, preparing polenta for supper, she reflected 
 with calm satisfaction that it was not many days 
 before confession. 
 
 " And one must do what one can in season ; a 
 little thing turns the scale." 
 
 When everything was prepared, she went to 
 the drawer to count out the money ; seven francs 
 and thirty centesimi, if she remembered right. 
 She thrust her hand under the kerchief and into 
 the toe of Pietro's sock, where she had put it, 
 the money was gone ! 
 
 Suor' Amalia could not believe it : she looked 
 again in that corner, then in the other ; she 
 rummaged through the whole drawer ; but a pile 
 of coppers is not something you can overlook, 
 and the money was certainly gone. 
 
 The Suor' Amalia was appalled. There was 
 nobody about ; who could have found and taken 
 it? She started to tell Isolina, but stopped,
 
 26 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 reflecting that she had never told her of the 
 money at all, and there was a certain awkward- 
 ness involved in the explanation. Evidently she 
 must carry the burden alone; but what could 
 she say to Bianca ? 
 
 " I will wait till to-morrow," thought Suor' 
 Amalia, her natural calmness beginning to re- 
 assert itself. " Without hands it could not have 
 happened, and I will think a little." 
 
 But although she thought the greater part of 
 the night, she was no better off in the morning ; 
 the money was just as much gone as the day 
 before, and it was with a heavy heart and slow 
 step that she crossed the yard to the other 
 house. 
 
 Bianca ran to meet her, and Suor' Amalia's 
 heart sank lower still at the change one night of 
 hope had wrought. 
 
 " Suor' Amalia," Bianca began, the moment 
 she was near enough to speak, '* how can I 
 thank you ! The good it has done him already, 
 just knowing it is there to spend ! And I am 
 going now to get the chicken. Come and see 
 how much better he is ; he will not let it out of 
 his sight." She was dragging Suor' Amalia in, 
 as she poured out the words.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 27 
 
 "What do you mean, Bianca?" gasped the 
 Suora. 
 
 " The money, oh, it has done us so much 
 good! just see how much better he is already." 
 As she spoke she had dragged Suor' Amalia 
 to the bed, and Suor' Amalia gasped again. 
 There lay the barber, propped on the pillow, his 
 thin hand playing with a pile of coppers at the 
 side. 
 
 " There they have been ever since we found 
 them this morning," said Bianca. " Just to feel 
 them gives him strength, he says." 
 
 " How much is there there ? " asked Suor' 
 Amalia, faintly. 
 
 " Seven francs and thirty centesimi, it is all 
 right, is it not ? " 
 
 Suor' Amalia nodded speechlessly. 
 
 "It was Nino who picked it up, the first thing 
 this morning, just inside the door ; who would 
 think money could look so good, Suor' Amalia, 
 just to look at?" 
 
 Suor' Amalia drew a long breath. " You had 
 better take some of it and buy that chicken, 
 Bianca," she said, turning to go. " And you see 
 one should have faith," she added reproach- 
 fully.
 
 28 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 " I will certainly see the Frate," she thought, 
 crossing herself as she retraced her steps. 
 " There is no living soul who could have done it. 
 And I who said, ' without hands it could not 
 have happened ' ! Who knows if it is not a 
 lesson for me ? But one thing is certain He 
 means me to help those two ; that I am sure 
 of." 
 
 Suor' Amalia was not a person to rest when a 
 duty had been pointed out so clearly. She 
 thought of it all day long, and the result was she 
 told Pietro his hair was too long for a Christian, 
 and sent him to have it shortened over opposite ; 
 and then, having gotten him well out of the 
 way, and listened to make sure that Isolina was 
 praying, she went surreptitiously to the closet to 
 take down the blue suit with gilt buttons. The 
 next moment she stepped out again with an 
 exclamation of dismay, the suit, gilt buttons 
 and all, was gone ! 
 
 Suor' Amalia sat down on a chair and crossed 
 herself repeatedly. 
 
 " God is working his miracles," she thought. 
 " And I who had so little faith !" 
 
 41 Suor' Amalia," said a voice. 
 
 " Yes," answered Suor' Amalia, crossing her-
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 29 
 
 self again, with a dim expectation of a divine 
 messenger. 
 
 It was only Bianca, her face so full of light 
 that she might almost pass for the messenger. 
 
 " He is so much better ; the meat has put new 
 heart into him, and spending carefully, the francs 
 will last several days." She set her jar upon 
 the table, and resting both hands on it looked 
 squarely into the Suora's eyes. 
 
 " Suor 5 Amalia, I wish you would tell me who 
 it is in this town besides yourself who 
 wishes us so well? If you knew what it is, 
 after living all these years ! The meat may 
 make him well, but' the other it is more than 
 bread and meat to me. You don't know, Suor' 
 Amalia " 
 
 Suor' Amalia shook her head. 
 
 " I cannot do that, Bianca ; you must be con- 
 tent as it is." 
 
 Bianca took up her jar again, then another 
 change swept over her face. 
 
 " And the little suit, Suor' Amalia, you put 
 it there, too, did n't you ? If you could see 
 Nino in it ! " 
 
 " The blue suit with gilt buttons ? " faltered 
 Suor'
 
 30 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 " Ah, how much it is beautiful with those 
 little gilt buttons ! " exclaimed Bianca," and as 
 good as new. And Nino in it " 
 
 Suor' Amalia felt the room go round her. 
 
 " And I who had so little faith ! " she thought. 
 
 Bianca took up her jar again and got as far 
 as the threshold ; there she turned. 
 
 "Do you know, Suor' Amalia, I have the 
 idea that some one will come to the shop 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Why not ? " answered Suor' Amalia, simply. 
 
 But there was still something on Bianca's 
 mind ; after a moment she spoke it. 
 
 " She," with a motion to the sposina's win- 
 dow, " is much worse to-day ; I heard them say 
 so. They wish each other so well, and she is 
 going." Her deep eyes gazed into the Suora's. 
 " Only yesterday I envied her the oranges," she 
 finished, turning away. 
 
 When she was quite gone, Suor' Amalia 
 made the sign of the cross once more. 
 
 "Now I shall have to see the Frate," she 
 thought. She stood a moment irresolute, then 
 sturdily took up the dish-cloth again. 
 
 "He knows I have never had time to be a 
 saint, like the I soli n a ; and one must risk a
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 31 
 
 little for one's neighbors now and then. It has 
 done her so much good." 
 
 "The little one is worse, Isolina," she said, 
 opening the door after knocking. As she 
 spoke, her glance fell upon a rose in the glass 
 before the Madonna's image. The rose-bush 
 had blossomed, then, and Isolina had offered 
 the rose, for what? For the little sposina 
 without doubt, thought the Suora, tenderly. 
 Isolina received the information with her usual 
 silence, but later, when the Suor' Amalia had 
 gone back to the front of the house to watch 
 the distracted coming and going across the 
 way, the noise of a match fell on her ear. She 
 listened wonderingly ; could it be yes, Isolina 
 was lighting a wax candle to the Madonna. 
 
 " It is an expense," thought Suor' Amalia, 
 "but Madonna bless it to her nevertheless." 
 
 And she thought reverently that the Frate 
 was right ; well might miracles happen in the 
 house which sheltered a saint. 
 
 But no candle, not two, nor twenty candles 
 could save the little sposina now. Love itself 
 could not; the arms that cling and the lips 
 that kiss again and again between prayers of 
 agony could not; the priests with all their 
 paraphernalia, when they came, could not.
 
 32 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 Tears ran down Suor' Amalia's face. 
 
 "It is all over," she thought, and the tears 
 ran fast. She moved to the bureau and fum- 
 bled for a handkerchief to wipe them away. 
 There is so much love in the world, and she 
 had never seen that any of it can keep death 
 one little moment away. " Life is hard, one 
 has need of much faith," she thought. 
 
 And even as she thought it, her fumbling 
 hands closed upon its Symbol. Surprised she 
 drew it forth and gazed at it through her tears 
 with growing wonder. What had the little 
 golden cross of Isolina to do in her drawer, 
 the cross which Isolina was never without, 
 the cross of Isolina who never left the inner 
 room? 
 
 It was certainly hers, caught securely in the 
 end of an old sock of Pietro's, the very sock 
 in fact, in which Suor' Amalia put the money 
 the other Ah ! 
 
 The light which fell upon Suor' Amalia be- 
 wildered for a moment, then it cleared her 
 entire world. Tears, no longer for the sposina, 
 rained down upon the golden cross. She knew 
 now how it was that miracles happened when 
 one had a saint in the house.
 
 The Sister of a Saint. 33 
 
 " It is all over, Suor' Amalia," said some one, 
 and Suor' Amalia turned, still holding Isolina's 
 cross shut fast in her hand. There were tears 
 in Bianca's eyes, and across the yard Suor' 
 Amalia could hear the soft tone of Nino sing- 
 ing, mingled with a noise of weeping. 
 
 "It is for the little sposina" said Bianca, 
 " and only yesterday I envied her ! " 
 
 Suor' Amalia stood at the window and looked 
 out. Through the cracks of the shutter, she 
 could see the light of the barber's candle. 
 Upstairs the house was dark except for one 
 window, through which streamed the blaze of 
 seven tall candles. Those were the little 
 sposinds candles, and the little sposina in her 
 marriage robe and lace lay in the midst, with 
 orange blossoms on her breast. 
 
 " She who had everything is taken," said 
 Bianca, " and he " 
 
 " Because," said Suor' Amalia, in a tone so 
 thrilled with feeling that Bianca looked at her 
 with awe, " a saint interceded for him." 
 
 Bianca felt herself tremble before the strange 
 tone in Suor' Amalia's voice. 
 
 " I cannot tell you how I know," continued 
 Suor' Amalia, still in that strange tone, "but
 
 34 The Sister of a Saint. 
 
 you have reason to live well, you two, and 
 to bring up the child in the fear of God; for 
 this I tell you, Bianca, he has had the 
 prayers of a saint ! " 
 
 The tears ran down her face again, and 
 Bianca fell on her knees. 
 
 "Suor' Amalia ?" 
 
 " Suor' Amalia raised her hand for silence. 
 In the next room some one was speaking. 
 
 " Requiem ceternam dona ets, Domine, et lux 
 perpetua lucent eis" 
 
 It was Isolina praying for the dead. 
 
 The two women crossed themselves. 
 
 "Requiem ceternam dona eis, Domine " 
 came the voice again. 
 
 "Et lux perpetua luceat ets!' 1 responded 
 Bianca. 
 
 And Suor' Amalia thought how one day 
 Isolina even Isolina would arise, beautiful 
 as the sposina, into the eternal light. 
 
 " For it is sown in corruption, it is raised in 
 
 incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised 
 
 in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised 
 
 in power." 
 
 And a third time her voice rose with theirs : 
 
 "Requiem ceternam dona eis, Domine j et 
 lux perpetua luceat eis ! "
 
 THE 
 
 HOUSE ON THE HILL-TOP.
 
 THE 
 
 House on the Hill-Top : 
 
 A Tale of Modern Etruria. 
 
 GIULIA, bent over her machine, pulled the 
 threads with flying fingers. Outside, the sun 
 beat straight down on the stone steps and the 
 stones of the little court in which the steep road 
 ended. "Sole di Maggio" murmured the 
 peasants going up and down the hill, in the 
 same tone of warning with which they had 
 said " Sole cTAprile " a month before, and 
 would say " Sole di Jugnio " a month later. 
 
 It was not jet seven o'clock in the morning, 
 but Giulia had long ago eaten her wedge 
 of black bread which Assunta cut from the 
 huge loaf for all of them, 'Tonio, Delia, 
 Gemma, and herself, and ever since her fin- 
 gers had flown without pausing. She had not
 
 38 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 stopped to look up when Gemma, coughing and 
 shivering in the hot sunshine, passed her on her 
 way to the fabbrica; nor, when 'Tonio, bent 
 double with rheumatism, limped painfully down 
 the hill. The little household worked always, 
 but now-a-days Giulia was the most industrious 
 of them all, and had her frame drawn to the 
 doorway to catch the light and busily clicking 
 before even Delia sat down to the pile of straw 
 which daily she converted into fans. Poor 
 stupid Delia, who had had " fear of a dog " once 
 in her youth, and fallen, and now was only good 
 to be the household drudge and make fans all 
 day long and every day. Her highest ambition 
 was to make twenty fans daily, those large, 
 round fans, which shut between two slender 
 sticks, and have a rosette on either side. Some- 
 times she made only fifteen, but these were bad 
 days. 
 
 Giulia wove the braided patterns for straw 
 hats, and Gemma, at the factory, made baskets, 
 which the fine ladies who came up to Fiesole 
 from Florence carried away on their arms. The 
 father, 'Tonio, worked at carpentering, but he 
 had been so long ill with rheumatism that he 
 worked less ; and never had there been so hard
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 39 
 
 a winter, and never so little money as just now 
 when there was such special need of it. 
 
 So Giulia's fingers flew, and she sat patiently 
 all day at her frame. Delia no longer had to 
 find fault with her waywardness, or scold her for 
 running out into the bright sunshine the moment 
 her back was turned, to jump about with Fuffi 
 from sheer gayety. Fuffi disconsolately lay at 
 her feet, or jumped by himself ; for was she not 
 about to " finish her thirteenth year," as they 
 say in Tuscany, when they mean one will be 
 fourteen years old, and was she not to take 
 her First Communion in three weeks in the 
 cathedral together with eleven other girls and 
 sixteen boys ? Assuredly ; and there was crying 
 need of whole francs to be expended upon the 
 dress and veil, without which she would never 
 feel that she had properly been confirmed at all. 
 For there are two indispensable, inexorable 
 needs in a Tuscan maiden's life, a white gown 
 and veil for the prima communione, and a black 
 gown for marriage. Everybody does n't marry, 
 but everybody at least, if he be not an actual 
 heathen is confirmed at some time. 
 
 But when one has so much work to live, there 
 is so little, little, to buy white gowns and veils
 
 4O The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 with. The whole family had worked and 
 planned willingly all winter that the bambina 
 might not be disappointed, but the bambina her- 
 self must do her share. 
 
 Presently the mother came out, her black 
 handkerchief with green strawberries stamped 
 on it knotted, Tuscan fashion, about her plain, 
 homely, energetic face, a clean blue apron tied 
 about her waist, the faded purple skirt showing 
 below, and the dingy plaid waist above. 
 
 Assunta was in a hurry, as she always was, 
 a Tuscan hurry, which is quite a different thing 
 from a New England hurry, and has in it a 
 good deal of aimless hither-and-thither running, 
 and rapid idling with one's neighbor, compen- 
 sated by more hasty rushing afterward. She 
 stopped a moment, however, on her way for the 
 Signorina's cream and butter, to look at Giulia's 
 braid, and caution Delia against cutting too 
 much bread for lunch Assunta herself never 
 lunched. She patted Giulia's shoulder. 
 
 " Work, work always, bambina, and who 
 knows " She finished with a smile and a 
 nod. 
 
 Pretty Giulia started up and threw her arms 
 about her mother eagerly.
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 41 
 
 " Oh, mamina \ do you think I can have the 
 ribbon ? " 
 
 " Who knows, chi lo sa f " replied Assunta, 
 with mingled doubt and hope. Oh, how much 
 she had thought about that ribbon herself ! 
 
 " Chi lo sa ? " she said again, hopefully. 
 
 At that moment Tesita came by Tesita, on 
 her way to Piazza San Domenico with her blind 
 and one-armed father, there to beg of all the 
 strangers. Just so they went by every day of 
 the year, Tesita a little more ragged and dirty 
 each day ; and every day in the year Assunta 
 eyed them with the same disfavor. Every day 
 also Tesita and Giulia looked at each other. 
 Giulia had been forbidden to have anything to 
 do with her former playmate since Beppe lost 
 his sight at the burning of the car-factory and 
 Tesita had become a street-beggar a " niente 
 di buona? Assunta said, with grieved indigna- 
 tion. She was sorry for the povero, yes; but 
 bring up a girl on the streets ! why did n't 
 they teach her to weave straw instead ? A girl 
 who lives on the streets soon will not work, and 
 when a girl will not work, what happens? 
 " Niente di buona no good." She knew very 
 well, however, why they did n't teach her to
 
 42 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 make straw ! He who begs makes three soldi, 
 while he who works makes one ! Assunta drew 
 her lips together scornfully. Some people will 
 do anything for money yes, even sell their 
 souls ! 
 
 So Giulia and Tesita only eyed each other 
 in silence each day. To-day Giulia sat up 
 straighten 
 
 "Wait until she sees my white gown and 
 veil ! " she thought, her heart already swelling 
 with pride. 
 
 Tesita wrinkled her small nose scornfully. 
 As if every one in all Fiesole had not known 
 for weeks that Assunta's Giulia was to make 
 her first communion ! 
 
 " Huh ! " thought Tesita in her sinful little 
 soul, " she thinks she 's very big because she 's 
 going to wear a veil ! and work, work, work all 
 day for it ! My Babbo could give me two 
 veils if it pleased him. She need n't be so 
 proud; wasn't my Babbo a Sant' Apostolo 
 only last Holy Thursday?" A cloud passed 
 over her impudently gay small face as she said 
 it. For had not the priest taken that very 
 proud occasion, when he paid the five francs 
 to each holy apostle, to look hard at her,
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 43 
 
 (though she made herself as small as never 
 was, behind the apostle's robe), and to say that 
 she was really quite too large to be always on 
 the street, and Beppe should begin to think of 
 sending her for holy instruction, and confirming 
 her ; it was ill for a ragazza to run the streets 
 at her age ? And Beppe, still under the in- 
 fluence of his apostolic dignity and the clean 
 stockings and linen robe he had worn for the 
 occasion, perhaps of the five francs too, had 
 talked seriously of taking rosy, blue-eyed 
 Annina with him in future. Tesita had had 
 all the trouble in the world to change his mind ; 
 she had had to remind him how beautifully she 
 talked to the strangers, and how cleverly she 
 arranged him on his knees in piteous pos- 
 tures, for Festas, before Beppe had relented 
 and decided to risk the Father's displeasure 
 yet a little longer. Since then Tesita had 
 grown adroit in whisking Beppe round a corner 
 whenever a black gown came in sight, not a 
 difficult task to escape the easy-going, rotund 
 Father. 
 
 Still, the evil day loomed in the future, and 
 darkened Tesita's horizon at moments when 
 she saw Giulia especially. To leave off beg-
 
 44 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 ging meant work work, abhorred of Tesita's 
 very soul, as only a creature of her untram- 
 melled life could abhor it. True, it rained half 
 the year at Fiesole, and the other half it blis- 
 tered beneath the sun ; and in rain and sun 
 alike the wind blew, either whirling white dust 
 in clouds, or driving sleet down one's throat 
 and through one's clothes ; but never mind ! 
 how far preferable one's freedom, even so. To 
 sit on stone walls, to curl up on the pavements 
 or in the dust itself, and listen to the cabmen 
 and contadini swearing and talking volubly; 
 to thrust out one's hand at the Forestieri, and 
 rehearse one's plea : " Signare, un poverino ! 
 Signorina, un povero vecchietto / " before lame 
 Ghigo or armless Gigi could get in a word, 
 these were simple pleasures, but sufficing. 
 Giulia, with her veils and her white gowns and 
 her straw-work and her industry, made the 
 soul of Tesita sick! She grunted audibly as 
 she led Beppe by, and Assunta watched her 
 with that compression of the lips which means 
 disapproval, and said, as usual, " Niente di 
 buonaJ" as she hurried after the Signorina's 
 cream. 
 
 The stones of the road almost fitted them-
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 45 
 
 selves automatically to Assunta's feet, she had 
 trodden them so often. Twenty-three years! 
 Ever since she and 'Tonio went to housekeep- 
 ing in that house on the utmost peak of Fie- 
 sole, a peak which embraced in vision all Val 
 d'Arno and its watching mountains, and which 
 now and then an enterprising tourist climbed 
 to, for the view, and boasted of for weeks after. 
 Assunta did not boast, however many times 
 she plodded up and down daily. It had good 
 air, "buon aria" she was fond of saying, and 
 a " bella vista;" for Italian eyes can no more 
 help being conscious of beauty than other eyes 
 of bread and meat before them. But now-a- 
 days Assunta concerned herself little with the 
 view. As she hastened down the hill she was 
 busy calculating, she had been calculating 
 for months past. 
 
 " Say so many lire for the waist, so many more 
 for the skirt; say three lire for the making (the 
 sarta said four, but that might be cut down to 
 three) ; a lire for buttons and the like ; four 
 lire. Then stockings, and boots, and the veil, 
 also ribbon." The folds in her forehead deep- 
 ened at each item. " Also the fornaio must be 
 paid this week, he said, for his daughter too 
 makes her communion."
 
 46 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 Assunta sighed; but for all her sighing she 
 did not slacken her steps or forget the Signo- 
 rina's cream and butter. The milkman's wife 
 poured out the first into a wee glass flask and 
 wrapped the second in dewy grape-leaves. 
 
 "They are good and fresh?" inquired As- 
 sunta, with that jealousy she always exhibited 
 in her Signorina's interest. 
 
 " If they are fresh ! " exclaimed the sfosa, 
 with reassuring enthusiasm. " And how stands 
 it at your house, Assunta ? " she added, con- 
 descendingly. 
 
 " As always ; thanks." 
 
 " 'Tonio goes to work ? " 
 
 " As he can." 
 
 "And the Gemma?" 
 
 "Also the Gemma." 
 
 " And the bambina makes her communion ? " 
 said the sympathetic sposa. 
 
 A smile of pride dawned on Assunta's face. 
 
 " Yes, madame." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed the sposa 1 s husband, heart- 
 ily. " that will be a bella ragazza some day ! " 
 
 " And a good one," added his wife, reprov- 
 ingly. " And the gown and veil ? " 
 
 Assunta's face fell. "At this hour," she
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 47 
 
 admitted, reluctantly, " they do not find them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the sposa, sympathetically, " it 
 has been a hard winter. Courage they will 
 be found." 
 
 " Let us hope so ! " responded Assunta, fer- 
 vently, appropriating the cream and butter, and 
 departing with so many salutations, and " Until 
 we see each other again." 
 
 She continued down the hill, taking that 
 winding Way which goes from where once 
 loomed the mighty Etruscan citadel, past the 
 gray walls of villas nodded over with pink 
 roses, down to the city, and at every zigzag 
 turn opens out to show you all Val d'Arno 
 with Florence on its breast, lifting her towers 
 and spires as thickly as the lilies she sup- 
 planted. It is a Way where one may see a 
 ghost in every tree and pluck memories plen- 
 teously as the roses on the walls ; but Assunta, 
 Fiesolana born and bred, knew and cared 
 nothing for that. What was it to her if the 
 feet of all the Etruscan Lars, of all the legions 
 of Hannibal and Cassar, of eager Catiline's 
 followers, of the entire riotous Florentine
 
 48 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 nobility had preceded hers over these roads ? 
 What should it be to her that once a slender 
 Mantuan scholar, with bent brows beneath 
 the hood, paced here as every day of her life 
 she saw the Frati doing? or that a gay idler 
 with the Decameronian chaplet about his head 
 had strayed hither? Truly, nothing. She 
 passed straight under the shadow of Lorenzo's 
 villa and did not lift her eyes. 
 
 " Seven lire it could scarce be less and 
 boots and stockings to say nothing of the 
 ribbon for the garland. Dio will that 'Tonio 
 may keep about, and Gemma ; it might yet be 
 possible then. And who knows but the Signo- 
 rina will have errands in the city." 
 
 Assunta's heart smote her a little even at the 
 wish. They were the only things she had on 
 her conscience towards the Signorina those 
 trips to town. She had never been rightly able 
 to satisfy herself that when the Signorina de- 
 spatched her in haste for something she was 
 quite fair to the Signorina to take her tram-fare 
 and walk the six miles to town and back. And 
 the fact that the Signorina was none the wiser 
 (for she found no fault, merely looked a little 
 impatient and said " Va bene / " or some such
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 49 
 
 phrase in her singular Italian) only half soothed 
 her conscience. But what would you ? when 
 times are so hard, to let an honest soldo pass 
 you was a little less than wicked ; and the Vir- 
 gin knew she never took a centesimo from the 
 Signorina in all the marketing, though the Signo- 
 rina hardly glanced at the change if she had a 
 pen in her hand as she usually did. Still, 
 it was with a shadow of compunction that she 
 opened the gate of the villa and hurried up- 
 stairs. 
 
 The Signorina greeted her with the cordiality 
 of one who has been impatiently waiting for 
 breakfast a long time, and she poured the cream 
 into her coffee and buttered her roll and began 
 in a preoccupied way to eat it without her usual 
 inquiries for the household on the hill ; for the 
 Signorina was anxious and troubled about many 
 things. 
 
 She had been casting up her accounts 
 never a good thing to do before breakfast 
 and had decided that beggary was near at hand. 
 Not being born to it like Tesita the pros- 
 pect depressed her spirits. Editors, she con- 
 cluded, were a worthless set, and literature a 
 profitless profession. Any number of unpleas- 
 4
 
 50 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 ant facts stared her in the face. Decidedly 
 she must give up the new summer hat and 
 patronize second-best dressmakers ; and the 
 Signorina hated second-best things on principle 
 as well as by instinct. The charming hem- 
 stitched linen which the ricamitrice made for 
 almost nothing must also be renounced, the 
 Signorina looked disgustedly at the plain cloth 
 on the table, and all like frivolous indulgences 
 must be denied. She began to think, too, that 
 she must make a rule of visiting the galleries on 
 free days, a practice particularly abhorrent to 
 the Signorina, whom Nature had so framed that 
 she never felt a desire to look at a picture on 
 Sundays, but hungered and thirsted after them 
 on Saturdays and Mondays. She was so 
 troubled at all these things that she did not 
 look up until Assunta had twice said " Signo- 
 rina ! " in an accent of reproach. 
 
 " The Signorina is very naughty (molto 
 cattiva)? said Assunta the third time. " She 
 slept again with her window open." 
 
 " I have told you fifty times, Assunta," re- 
 sponded the Signorina, listlessly, " that I can't 
 sleep at all without." 
 
 " And therefore the Signorina is pallidissima
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 51 
 
 this morning," went on Assunta, calmly. " And 
 it is bad for the eyes." 
 
 The Signorina opened hers widely. 
 
 " Nonsense ; when there is n't a ray of light 
 not so much as a firefly." 
 
 " And now the Signorina eats nothing. Eat, 
 eat, Signorina, and fatten." 
 
 Thus adjured, as she was three times a day, 
 the Signorina nowise remarkable for pallor or 
 emaciation among her pallid countrywomen, 
 but who, since she came to Italy, had often been 
 made to feel that she was created in the image of 
 a tallow candle made an effort to swallow the 
 other half of her roll. 
 
 " How is your husband to-day, Assunta ? " 
 she asked, with languid interest. 
 
 " Badly, badly, Signorina," answered Assunta, 
 cheerfully, cutting bread. " Poverino ! when he 
 goes to work he walks so." She dramatically 
 doubled herself up and limped a few steps, then, 
 straightening up, pushed the butter towards the 
 Signorina, saying cheerily, "Eat, eat, Signo- 
 rina mia" 
 
 " Goes to work ?" echoed the Signorina, "but 
 he has been in bed for weeks; how can he 
 work?"
 
 52 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 Assunta shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " What would you ? There were but two lire 
 left remaining when we paid the fornaio Satur- 
 day, and the Signorina knows two lire is little 
 for five persons." 
 
 " But there is always the straw-work ? " 
 
 " Truly, yes (the Signorina is not eating) 
 there is the straw-work," assented Assunta, 
 "Yesterday the Delia made twenty fans." 
 
 " Twenty fans ! that must be a long day's 
 work, Assunta ? " 
 
 " From six to eight every, every, EVERY 
 minute, Signorina." 
 
 " Dear me ! " thought the Signorina, " 7 
 should like to make twenty fans a day and 
 sell them ! How much does she get for a fan, 
 Assunta ? " 
 
 " A centesimo, Signorina." 
 
 The Signorina, with a spoonful of coffee at 
 her lips, dropped it 
 
 " A centesimo ! " she repeated. 
 
 " What misfortune ! " ejaculated Assunta, 
 hastily wiping up the coffee. 
 
 While she did so the unmathematical Signo- 
 rina made a hasty calculation. A centesimo is 
 the fifth of a cent; twenty centesimi are four
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 53 
 
 cents ; then if one works " every, every, EVERY 
 minute " for fourteen hours, one may live to 
 make four cents a day. " And the fans sell for 
 a franc and a half or two francs apiece ; worse 
 than literature!''' 1 concluded the Signorina 
 grimly to herself. 
 
 "It is not much," said Assunta, serenely, 
 " but what would you ? The fabbricante makes 
 all. The Giulia, however," she went on, en- 
 couragingly, " can now make from eight to ten 
 arms of braid a day, and receives twenty-five 
 centesimi for fourteen arms." 
 
 "And Gemma?" suggested the Signorina, 
 faintly. 
 
 " The Gemma makes three francs a week at 
 the fabbrica, but poverina .' she is always 
 ill. The Signorina has eaten nothing! " 
 
 The Signorina turned at the door of her 
 room. 
 
 " And the gown for the first Communion, 
 Assunta ? " she asked. 
 
 Assunta clasped her hands. 
 
 " Chi lo sa ! it does not find itself as 
 yet." 
 
 "And the veil, the ribbon? " 
 
 Assunta's face faded still more.
 
 54 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 " The veil and the ribbon also the boots 
 do not find themselves either, Signorina," 
 she replied, despondently. 
 
 The Signorina looked at the downcast coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 " Never mind ! " she said encouragingly. " I 
 dare say they will, and, by and by, could you go 
 to the city for me ? " 
 
 " Willingly, Signorina ! " responded Assunta, 
 with alacrity ; and as she spoke her heart 
 smote her. 
 
 It smote her again when she stood in the 
 Piazza San Domenico with the Signorina's 
 franc in her hand. It would cost her eighty 
 centimes to go and return, and the Signorina 
 was wont to bestow the remaining twenty on 
 her. The sun was at white heat ; there stood 
 the tram on one side, and on the other the 
 winding Way of Boccaccio, three miles of it, 
 between stone walls which gathered the heat 
 and reflected it straight to the lime-dust of the 
 road. She hesitated, beholding on the one 
 hand her waiting Signorina, who could do no 
 more work without paper, and on the other the 
 metre and a half of ribbon which might be 
 bought for eighty centimes.
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 55 
 
 " It is a sin to waste it and I will run every 
 step of the way ! " she thought, and set hastily 
 off down the burning road. 
 
 " Ecco, Signorina ! " she exclaimed, hours 
 later, depositing a heavy package on the table, 
 before which the Signorina, in the thinnest of 
 cool, white muslins, sat, feeling life a burden. 
 She glanced at her messenger's purple face but 
 said nothing. 
 
 " How it is cool and fresh here ! " remarked 
 Assunta, easily, " but in those trams, Dio mio, 
 what a heat ! Here are the twenty centesimi." 
 
 The Signorina pushed them silently back. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, gently. 
 
 " Dio mio ! " moaned Assunta to herself as 
 she toiled up the hill, " Dio mio / Dio mio / " 
 She said it all the way until she came in sight 
 of the little house on the hill-top, and Giulia 
 bending over the frame, her cheeks pale with 
 the long, hot day's work. 
 
 Then Assunta's eyes brightened. 
 
 " Guarda, Giulia ! " she exclaimed, joyously, 
 holding up her franc, " the ribbon finds it- 
 self!" 
 
 Giulia, with a cry of delight, threw her arms 
 about her ; and the last sting of remorse van- 
 ished at that touch.
 
 56 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 " I ran all the way," she said to herself, just- 
 ifyingly. 
 
 " Gemma, oh, Gemma ! " cried Giulia, dart- 
 ing to greet her as she dragged up the steps, 
 and dancing about her. "The ribbon finds 
 itself!" 
 
 She stopped short, perceiving Tesita, hot 
 and dirty from a day's lolling in the dust, but 
 with many soldi in her or rather Beppe's 
 pocket. Tesita heard. 
 
 " Huh ! " she said to herself, contemptuously. 
 " Now she 's got her old ribbon ! " 
 
 Not for anything in the world would Tesita 
 have admitted to herself a pang of envy. 
 
 " Huh ! " she said again, scornfully. 
 
 Assunta, smiling still with exultation, and 
 beginning to fan the fire for the mtnestra, 
 paused to shake her head and murmur, as 
 usual : 
 
 "Niente dibuona!" 
 
 "Dio miof" Assunta said it often, in the 
 intervening weeks, as the days dragged along, 
 loaded with calamities. 
 
 " Dio mio / " She said it very often. 
 
 First, 'Tonio took to his bed, doubled up with
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 57 
 
 rheumatism so that it was no longer possible 
 to sit up much less work. And instead of 
 ten francs a week " and he has been known 
 to make as much as fourteen," said Assunta, 
 with sad pride there was nothing at all. And 
 then as if there was no reason in anything 
 his stomach refused the good food, bread and 
 minestra, such as he had eaten every day of 
 his life, except such days as they had not been 
 able to afford the minestra, when he ate the 
 bread alone. 
 
 " Seven pounds and a half of bread and a 
 half a kilo of minestra every day," said As- 
 sunta, " and the bread a whole franc ! The 
 Signorina sees, what with a bit of carbone to 
 cook the minestra and a drop of petrolic to 
 work by nights, and the rent, it is not possible 
 to live on much less than twelve francs, or even 
 fourteen, a week." 
 
 The Signorina, grown expert in doing many 
 little sums lately, computed rapidly : fourteen 
 francs a week; one hundred and forty-five 
 dollars a year; divide by five twenty-nine 
 dollars a year apiece ; divide by twelve two 
 dollars and forty cents a month apiece. No, 
 she did not find it unreasonable.
 
 58 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 " But we must all work," said Assunta, " and 
 if 'Tonio cannot eat he cannot work, and if he 
 cannot eat good bread ! " she looked as if 
 divided between compassion and impatience. 
 
 The Signorina was no longer surprised at 
 anything even 'Tonio's unreason. 
 
 " Buon giorno, Signorina ; has she slept 
 well ? " always greeted her ears, in the same 
 tone of unvarying, cheerful interest, each morn- 
 ing. Assunta might have a trouble or two at 
 heart, but who was she that she should bring 
 her clouds into the Signorina's atmosphere? 
 It was not until the Signorina herself, in the 
 pauses of her type-writing or her writing, looked 
 up and asked specific questions, that she ex- 
 tracted such news as there was. 
 
 " Yes, 'Tonio had taken to his bed again," 
 or " Gemma had again an abscess " (for people 
 will even have afflictions that are not pretty or 
 pleasing) ; but " pazienza / what would you ? " 
 
 There was, in truth, a trouble at Assunta's 
 heart. It was not the sickness that she had 
 known before. It was not the lacking minestra 
 nor the bread falling short these she had 
 lived through before ; but a First Communion 
 can neither be given up nor postponed. It rep-
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 59 
 
 resented all the festas of a girl's lifetime in 
 one, and its robe took the place of a society 
 belle's hundred party-gowns. Gemma had 
 taken her Communion three years before, and 
 the bambino. what a misery it would be if she 
 should miss it ! The bambino, was working 
 day in and out, and Delia made her score 
 of fans nearly every day ; but what with the 
 baker, and now a plaster for 'Tonio and an- 
 other for Gemma, and no wages it was a 
 desperate outlook for the gown. Assunta shut 
 her eyes to it and went ahead. 
 
 What she did and did n't do those weeks, no 
 one but herself precisely knew. The Signorina 
 grew accustomed to seeing her arrive breath- 
 lessly, with the butter and cream and an 
 apology she had had a bit to do, or an errand 
 to run, and the Signorina would graciously 
 " have patience." Or late in the evenings 
 when she had (presumably) been at home for 
 hours, the Signorina strolling in the ilex-walks 
 would hear a cheery " Good-evening, Signorina! 
 a pleasant walk !" and behold her late servitor 
 up to her elbows in the stone washing-trough, 
 or ironing for dear life on a table set in the 
 shrine beneath the life-size Crucifixion.
 
 60 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 Once in a while but rarely the Signorina 
 let fall some commiserating word. 
 
 " What would you ? " was the invariable reply, 
 accompanied by a shrug ; " I have never been 
 less poor, Signorina." 
 
 But as the days passed, bringing nothing but 
 more debt and less hope, Assunta clasped her 
 hands and dropped more than one tear upon 
 that ironing-table, while she fervently implored 
 the saints and Madonna for aid. The Madonna 
 herself ought to take an interest in it, for surely 
 she could n't want Giulia to march in her pro- 
 cession wearing things so shabby that they could 
 only be characterized by ending them in a scorn- 
 ful " accio" " scarpaccio" and the like. 
 
 Whether the Madonna took this view of it or 
 not, one day Assunta fairly flew upstairs and 
 announced joyfully : 
 
 " Signorina ! Signorina ! the veil finds itself ! " 
 
 The Signorina dropped her pen and clapped 
 her hands. 
 
 " It is most beautiful and a gift ! " Assunta 
 continued, ecstatically. " So large, and also long 
 and beautiful beautiful, Signorina ! " 
 
 It is true, if dark clouds have silver linings, 
 silver clouds have dark ones as often ; the next
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 61 
 
 morning Gemma coughed blood. Assunta's 
 voice broke as she told it, and she wrung her 
 hands passionately for a moment. " Dio mio / 
 if it should be all her father's people went so ! 
 Che passione ! " 
 
 The Signorina looked helplessly about her. 
 
 " But Giulia is well," she said, " and Delia is 
 never ill." 
 
 A shadow crossed Assunta's face. 
 
 " No danger," she said briefly, with the only 
 approach to bitterness the Signorina ever heard. 
 
 Poor, homely, stupid Delia ! the only one of 
 the three always well and robust. While pretty 
 Gemma 
 
 The Signorina tried again ; she too had 
 coughed blood, but I hardly think her physicians 
 would have recognized her case from her de- 
 scription. She was very eloquent over it. When 
 she had finished, Assunta regarded her respect- 
 fully, as a miracle, and the Signorina felt a little 
 like a miracle herself. According to her it was 
 less than nothing, if it were not indeed a healthy 
 symptom, to cough blood ; all the long-lived 
 people she was able to remember had coughed 
 for many years. One could argue nothing from 
 a trifle of that kind. Assunta was more than 
 consoled.
 
 62 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 " And the Signorina slept again with her win- 
 dow open ! " she remarked, catching sight of it 
 as she wiped away the last tear. " How naughty 
 she is ! And the veil, Signorina, you should see 
 how it is beautiful ! " she added, gayly, from the 
 threshold, as she went. 
 
 The Signorina leaned back in her chair, deeply 
 conscious that she had been making an idiot of 
 herself. 
 
 " Cosa vuole ? what would you ? " she said to 
 herself in Assunta's extenuating phrase, a little 
 palely. 
 
 She was so tired that she underwent a revul- 
 sion later, and was glad when Assunta brought 
 in strawberries for her to look at, and she could 
 survey them discontentedly and find them poor, 
 and dear at the price. 
 
 Assunta agreed that they ought to be far finer 
 for the Signorina, and suggested that it might 
 be well for her to go in search of others at 
 Fiesole or even to the city. 
 
 Which brought the Signorina to her senses. 
 
 " This is my festa, Assunta," said the Signo- 
 rina, looking up from the pile of birthday letters 
 and gifts on her table.
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 63 
 
 Assunta, with a copper water-jar in either 
 hand, stopped short. 
 
 " Truly, Signorina ! it is also mine ! " she 
 exclaimed. " And how many years has the 
 Signorina ? " she asked, with interest. 
 
 "Twenty-eight." 
 
 The copper jars went down to the floor. 
 
 " Truly ! How well the Signorina carries 
 them ! " 
 
 The Signorina, who never before had realized 
 her antiquity, felt actually abashed. 
 
 " And how many years have you, Assunta ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I finish forty, Signorina." 
 
 In her turn the Signorina stared ; twelve years 
 only between herself and the worn, wrinkled, 
 thin-haired, almost toothless woman before her ! 
 
 "Yes, Signorina," went on Assunta, tran- 
 quilly. " Forty years ago my mother put me in 
 the world. I was born on the roadside, the 
 Signorina remembers, and she carried me home 
 in her apron, so ! " gathering up her blue apron to 
 illustrate. Then letting it fall again, " And the 
 Signorina has twenty-eight years ! Who would 
 believe it ? " 
 
 " I think I should like some very nice straw-
 
 64 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 berries for myfesta if you can go to the city 
 for me," said the Signorina, to change the 
 subject. 
 
 " Signorina, I am here to obey you," replied 
 Assunta, gravely, in spite of her inward emo- 
 tion. A whole franc toward the boots ! 
 
 And while she was hurrying down the hill 
 and over the white road, the Signorina, in the 
 midst of her pretty gifts and the pleasant mood 
 they awakened, was experiencing an unwonted 
 fit of benevolence. 
 
 " Poor Assunta ! " she thought, " I should like 
 to give her something for her festa if I were 
 not so poor ; " and she fell to wondering what in 
 all the world Assunta would best like to have. 
 Not that edition of Shelley, surely, which had 
 made her own eyes sparkle with delight, nor yet 
 the dainty linen worked by dear hands; Assunta 
 wanted nothing for herself. 
 
 " I know ! " thought the Signorina, with con- 
 viction. 
 
 She went into her room and sitting down be- 
 fore her bureau, drew out one by one the fourteen 
 gowns which were its contents. 
 
 " I will certainly do it," she said to herself, 
 and after some pondering she selected the plain-
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 65 
 
 est and the oldest a white cashmere and 
 spread it out on her lap. 
 
 The smile of satisfaction deepened on her 
 lips. 
 
 " I should not wear it six times more and 
 even if I do miss it," she said to herself, gener- 
 ously, " I should be willing to make a sacrifice 
 now and then. I will certainly do it." 
 
 Her heart grew light. " How pleased Assunta 
 will be ! " She was so pleased with herself for 
 thinking of it that she shut up the other thirteen 
 gowns gayly and went in to dinner, still smiling. 
 There is nothing so sweet, the sages tell us, as 
 a self-approving conscience. 
 
 One good action begets another. 
 
 " Does Gemma like strawberries ? " asked the 
 Signorina, languidly, as she filled her saucer for 
 the third time, while Assunta stood beaming 
 near. 
 
 " Chi lo sa f " answered Assunta, tranquilly. 
 
 At this remarkable reply the Signorina raised 
 her eyes in astonishment. 
 
 " She has never tasted them," explained As- 
 sunta. " They are so dear the Signorina 
 knows " 
 
 " Never tasted them ! " repeated the Signorina. 
 5
 
 66 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 " Do you not have fruit all the fruit you want 
 
 in Tuscany ? " 
 
 " Oh, there is plenty of fruit, Signorina," 
 responded Assunta, cheeringly, " but for poor 
 people it costs too much. Sometimes," she 
 added, " we have tasted figs ; yes, more than 
 once in my life have I eaten them fresh " (the 
 Signorina had an instant vision of them, purple 
 and luscious, and sixteen for a soldo), " but 
 dried never ; as for oranges and other fruits, 
 
 the Signorina knows what they cost, I and 
 my people have never tasted them. Are not the 
 strawberries good, that the Signorina is leaving 
 them?" 
 
 " Give them to Gemma," said the Signorina, 
 with a gesture of loathing, walking away. 
 
 Presently she returned with something white 
 in her arms, but no triumph in her expression. 
 
 " Assunta," she said, hesitatingly, " if you 
 can use this for Giulia" she laid it on the 
 sofa. 
 
 Assunta fell on her knees before it. 
 
 " Don't ! " said the Signorina, " don't ! " and 
 she fled. 
 
 " Dio miol Dio mio/" murmured Assunta 
 all the way up the hill, tears dropping through
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 67 
 
 every smile, but not one upon the precious 
 cashmere. 
 
 " Giulia, oh, Giulia ! arrive below ! " she 
 shouted up the stairs, and then she opened her 
 apron. 
 
 Oh, the rapture ! Giulia laughed and cried 
 for joy ; Delia rejoiced unselfishly ; Gemma, 
 coughing painfully, came and looked wistfully 
 hers had not been so fine nearly, and this 
 would have many, many tucks. 
 
 In their hearts all had begun to despair, but 
 now that the dress had found itself the rest 
 would surely follow. Giulia flew back to her 
 frame, and her fingers flew also with fresh 
 activity ; from time to time she crept away to 
 peep at the wonderful dress all wrapped away 
 in paper, and then flew back again. Delia 
 began a new fan, and Gemma pale Gemma 
 took up the straw in her thin fingers and 
 began to weave a little basket for the Signorina. 
 Even 'Tonio, on the strength of the great re- 
 joicing, crept back to work the next day ; for 
 he thought he might at least make enough for 
 shoes for the bambino, and he did. 
 
 "If the Signorina can spare me," said As- 
 sunta, tremulous with pride, " Giulia is coming
 
 68 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 at half-past twenty-one o'clock to go to the 
 city." 
 
 The Signorina looked up quickly. Could 
 it be? 
 
 The smile trembling on Assunta's lips ran 
 over and overflowed her furrowed face; one 
 might say her soul smiled. 
 
 "SI, Signorina," she answered the look; 
 "we go to buy the shoes, also the stockings, 
 also " her voice trembled with this culminat- 
 ing triumph " the ribbon." 
 
 The Signorina clapped her hands. 
 
 "Bravaf Brava!" 
 
 Assunta moved softly and ecstatically about, 
 doing her work ; but that her mind was full of 
 its own bliss, the Signorma, tripping steadily 
 away and affecting to hear nothing, could tell. 
 
 "Beautiful little things! beautiful little 
 things ! " she could hear her sigh ecstatically, 
 as she lifted the Signorina's thrice-patched 
 number fours and surveyed them with lingering 
 admiration perhaps picturing a pair as fair on 
 Giulia's feet And she spent a most unusual 
 care upon the toilet-table and all its knick- 
 knacks, as if they had a suddenly acquired rela- 
 tion through the splendors about to be Giulia's.
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 69 
 
 She kept that bright-eyed and exultant little 
 maiden waiting long after the hour, while she 
 scrupulously fulfilled every service ; for nothing 
 was permitted to take precedence of the Signo- 
 rina's comfort. At length, however, they de- 
 parted, Assunta quite stiff with importance, 
 Giulia openly dancing at her side. They 
 walked, of course; for who would dream of 
 spending twice eighty centimes on a tram ? 
 and what was six miles with the boots at 
 their end ? Giulia looked about her secretly at 
 the Piazza she would have liked Tesita to 
 see her going to the city to shop, just like a 
 signorina ; but Tesita was not there. 
 
 The Signorina could scarcely wait for the 
 next morning, but when it came she had her 
 question out almost before she heard the door 
 open. 
 
 "The boots are they beautiful, Assunta? 
 And the ribbon ? " 
 
 11 If they are beautiful, Signorina! five lire 
 they cost me in Florence ! And the stockings, 
 Signorina! beautiful black ones for half a 
 lira! As for the ribbon two metres and a 
 half so wide, a franc and a half. Giulia is 
 pazza, pazza with joy ! and the sarta finishes
 
 70 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 the dress at this hour the Signorina will see 
 if it is beautiful ! " 
 
 " And Gemma and Tonio f " asked the Sig- 
 norina, smiling. 
 
 Alas ! why had she asked ? 
 
 Assunta found her voice in a moment. 
 
 " Chi lo sa, Signorina ? " she said sadly ; 
 "the Gemma stays in bed this morning." 
 
 " And 'Tonio ? " 
 
 " 'Tonio also stays in bed ; the good and the 
 bad come always together it is necessary to 
 have patience." 
 
 "Tesita also is ill," announced Assunta, 
 later in the day. " She has the tifo" 
 
 " Ah ! I hope she is not very ill," replied 
 the Signorina. 
 
 " It would be better that she should die," 
 said Assunta, with sorrowful sternness. " When 
 a girl stays on the streets it is better that she 
 dies ; she will come to nothing good. There 
 are persons who will do anything for money." 
 Then, her indignation melting into a smile, she 
 added : 
 
 " The Signorina will not forget that she has 
 promised to-morrow at eight she will be in 
 the Duomo?"
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 71 
 
 "She will not forget, Assunta; she will be 
 there." 
 
 It had come at last, the great day ; and, for 
 a miracle of miracles, rain came not with it. 
 Up on the hill-top they were stirring with the 
 daylight, for how was it possible to sleep with 
 those boots in plain sight and the knowledge 
 of that gown in the drawer ? 
 
 Giulia flew from room to room, but not more 
 excitedly than her mother and Delia. The 
 whole family convened to assist at the cere- 
 mony of dressing, and as article after article 
 went on, Assunta, standing by, calculated the 
 cost. That added immensely to the impres- 
 siveness. 
 
 First the beautiful black stockings : " Half a 
 franc," murmured Assunta, breathlessly, as 
 they were drawn on, slowly, without a jerk or 
 a pull, lest they should tear. Then the boots 
 miles too large and quite shapeless, for who 
 would be so incredibly reckless as to buy boots 
 for five francs only large enough for a foot as 
 it is, and take no thought for next year or the 
 year after ? They had patent-leather tips, how- 
 ever, and Giulia could hardly stand up in them
 
 72 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 for pride. Then came the skirt, with many 
 tucks, and all the fulness in front, as Fiesolan 
 dresses are wont to have it ; and the waist, 
 also tucked in every possible direction, length- 
 wise and breadthwise, to allow for the years of 
 letting out and down ; naturally, one could not 
 hope to have a second gown like this. 
 
 " Three francs for the sarta, and half a franc 
 for the buttons," commented Assunta, as Delia 
 fastened them ; for Giulia's fingers were use- 
 less, they shook so. 
 
 Then the veil : a splendid square of curtain 
 muslin, falling quite to the bottom of the short 
 skirt and gathered full about the rosy face 
 under the ribbon garland. 
 
 " Two metres and a half a franc and a half 
 it cost," murmured Assunta. 
 
 There was yet something lacking, the white 
 cotton gloves Gemma had worn three years 
 before. Immensely large they made Giulia's 
 slender brown hands look, and the fingers were 
 worn through, but still they were truly mag- 
 nificent. 
 
 They all stood off and gazed. 
 
 At last ! 
 
 " Ten lire and a half I spent for it ! " said
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 73 
 
 Assunta, with a sigh of unutterable content. 
 " How much it is beautiful Quanta I bella /" 
 
 "Quanta I bella!" The Signorina said the 
 same words an hour later, as she entered the 
 dim and still Duomo from the morning sun- 
 light, and the sixteen little boys and twelve 
 little brides of Heaven carried up their flowers 
 to the Madonna. Nearly all Fiesole was there, 
 and not only priests and acolytes in due pro- 
 fusion, but a Bishop and an Archbishop in 
 white and gold before the altar. 
 
 The little brides knelt on one side and the 
 little boys on the other, and twenty-eight pairs 
 of small hands in gloves rested on the chancel 
 railing ; while twenty-eight heads bent devoutly, 
 with now and then a furtive side-glance at one's 
 veil to be sure it was down, or at one's ribbons 
 to be sure they were still there. 
 
 The Bishop prayed and the Archbishop ex- 
 horted; then the Archbishop prayed and the 
 Bishop exhorted ; and finally, after all the cere- 
 mony had been duly observed, the sixteen little 
 boys went up two by two and knelt to receive 
 the holy wafer. Then came the turn of the 
 twelve little brides, and the prettiest of them 
 all was Assunta's Giulia, in the much-tucked
 
 74 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 dress, with the beautiful boots creaking as she 
 went, and the long veil fluttering about the rosy 
 face, sweetly serious for the moment and for- 
 getful of all her finery, I really think. The 
 huge cotton gloves were devoutly folded over 
 a white prayer-book, lent for the occasion. 
 And as they went 
 
 u Verbum caro, panem verum, 
 
 Verbo carnem efficit, 
 Fitque Sanguis Christ! merum 
 
 Et si sensus deficit 
 Ad firman dum cor sincerum 
 
 Sola fides sufficit," 
 
 rose the voices all about them. 
 
 Eight small brides had knelt and risen ; now 
 it was Giulia's turn. The Signorina leaned 
 forward ; two little figures knelt ; the Arch- 
 bishop popped something into two rosy mouths, 
 opened like a bird's to be fed ; then two little 
 figures rose, and the next two advanced. The 
 great moment was over; Giulia had taken her 
 first communion, and 
 
 " O Salutaris Hostia t qui coeli pandis ostia 1 " 
 
 sang the voices softly. 
 
 But all was not over ; not until each had
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 75 
 
 received a silver crucifix (to wear until one's 
 second communion, eight days later), a pictured 
 saint's card, a medal with a pink ribbon, which 
 the Archbishop himself threw over the bent 
 heads, and the mammas and sisters stealthily 
 adjusted from behind : and, last of all, a loaf 
 of consecrated bread to take home for the 
 collazione after the service. Then the Arch- 
 bishop blessed the little flock, and every one 
 pressed forward to see the little boys and the 
 brides, but especially the brides, because they 
 were so much more fine to see ; and so, all whis- 
 pering and admiring, the crowd poured from the 
 Duomo, not forgetting to cross one's self with 
 holy water at the font. 
 
 Giulia, escorted by a group of admiring 
 friends, walked demurely, casting a glance to 
 see if haply Tesita was witnessing her triumph ; 
 but Tesita was not there. The Signorina, how- 
 ever, was there and stopped to admire every- 
 thing, from the white gown and veil to the 
 crucifix and medal. Then they started up the 
 hill, the little bride blushing with pleasure and 
 modesty, her hands demurely clasping the book, 
 and all her train following. As they went up
 
 76 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 on one side, another little procession came down 
 on the other, black-masked Brothers of Mercy 
 carrying a small black bier. Every one stepped 
 aside to let them pass, and Giulia crossed her- 
 self twice, like a pious little maiden, once at the 
 crucifix, once at the bier. But nobody dreamed 
 it was Tesita going by in such state, until the 
 next day, when rosy Annina appeared on the 
 piazza with Beppe and lisped out, " Signorine 
 poverino ! " in funny imitation of Tesita. 
 It was, however, " a providenza" Assunta 
 declared then, " for it was certain she would 
 have come to nothing good." 
 
 Far from any thought of Tesita, Giulia sped 
 on up the steep hill till the little house came in 
 sight ; and there on the threshold, with such a 
 face as the angels may wear, stood Assunta, 
 watching the triumph of her child. 
 
 The little bride, finery and all, flew into her 
 arms; oh, it had been so beautiful! 
 
 Assunta turned her beaming eyes upon the 
 group. The Signorina had kept her promise. 
 She had seen it all the procession to the 
 Madonna the Archbishop all; and it was 
 beautiful, non i vero f Perhaps she had even
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 77 
 
 seen the bambino, take her communion, at the 
 very moment itself. 
 
 The very precise moment, even to the open- 
 ing and shutting of the rosy mouth ; it had 
 been most beautiful, and 
 
 " Oh, Assunta, Assunta ! " exclaimed the Si- 
 gnorina, taking the hard hand in hers, with sor- 
 rowful passion, " why were you not there ? " 
 
 Assunta laughed, a little short, happy, shame- 
 faced laugh. 
 
 " Oh, Signorina mia ! " she said, deprecat- 
 ingly ; " in this gown and these boots ! how was 
 it possible ? But it was truly beautiful, was it 
 not?" she added, gleefully. "And the Si- 
 gnorina saw my bambino, y" her eyes rested 
 proudly on the small white figure holding court 
 in the dingy room. 
 
 Never was such a day! To be sure, there 
 was no collation it had been manifestly im- 
 possible to compass that ; but the neighbors 
 came flocking all day long to admire and de- 
 clare that within memory there had not been a 
 prettier communicant, no, nor one that de- 
 served better. 
 
 'Tonio sat proudly by, and Gemma, propped
 
 78 The House on the Hill-Top. 
 
 up among pillows, listened and shared unenvi- 
 ously in her little sister's triumph, while Delia 
 ran about waiting on everybody. As for As- 
 sunta, she only stood and smiled and smiled. 
 Never was such a day ! 
 
 But the longest and the happiest day must 
 end at last, and presently the white gown was 
 taken off oh, how carefully and folded 
 away against thefesta of Corpus Domini : and 
 the veil was also laid away, and the fine prayer- 
 book sent home, while the beautiful boots were 
 stood on the bureau where every one could look 
 at them. 
 
 Then the soft night of Tuscany came down 
 
 luminous and fragrant and alive with silence 
 
 and everybody slept. 
 
 Tesita, alone for the first time in her life in the 
 stanza mortuaria, slept with wide-open eyes 
 and the sound of slowly dripping water near by. 
 And in the house on the hill-top, worn out with 
 excitement, all slept. 'Tonio, forgetful of his 
 rheumatism, and tired Delia, and even Gemma, 
 ceasing to cough for a time, lay sleeping with 
 the little red-stained handkerchief in her hot 
 hand. In the other room Giulia, clasping the
 
 The House on the Hill-Top. 79 
 
 silver crucifix, dreamed that it was already 
 Corpus Domini. But Assunta, a smile of 
 fathomless content still on her thin lips, slept 
 dreamlessly the sleep of profound exhaustion. 
 Only the Signorina down in the villa could 
 not sleep for thinking of many things.
 
 THE LUCKY NUMBER.
 
 The Lucky Number. 
 
 SHE was called "the Seventh," because she 
 was the seventh. Only, as she was a little 
 Italian girl, she was numbered in Italian, 
 Settima; and this is the story of her great good 
 fortune. 
 
 It began with her falling ill ; perhaps because 
 she had not eaten enough all winter long. There 
 were six little sisters, older than Settima of course, 
 or how could she ever have been Number Seven ? 
 And there was a little brother, younger, who 
 might have been called " Ottimo " " Eighth," 
 but was instead Cosimo Vittorio Paolo ; Cosimo, 
 for the great Duke, Cosimo dei Medici, who 
 died hundreds of years before this Cosimo was 
 born ; Vittorio, for the Father of Italy, her 
 first king, Victor Emmanuel ; and Paolo, for 
 the little boy's own father, whom Paolo's mother 
 considered to be nearly as great a man as the
 
 84 The Lucky Number. 
 
 other two. If he was not so great, at least he 
 was as good, which is still better. Cosimo's 
 mother had wished many years for a son to 
 name Paolo ; she had named one of the girls 
 Paolina, it is true, but it was never the same 
 thing. 
 
 Why Settima was numbered is easily ex- 
 plained. There were, as I have said, six older 
 sisters, and as names cost nothing and were 
 almost the only thing Settima's parents had to 
 give their little daughters, they gave them each 
 several; so by the time it was Settima's turn, 
 the girls' names were quite exhausted. When 
 Cosimo came, on the other hand, there was a 
 whole fresh stock of boys' names to choose 
 from. 
 
 However, the little Settima did not mind 
 being numbered. She lived very happily with 
 her six sisters and brother, because, although 
 they were very poor, they had a father and a 
 mother who loved them. It was true they had 
 but two rooms to live in, and not very large 
 ones at that ; but who would choose to live in a 
 house when there was all out-doors to play in, 
 and especially the ship-yard? The Seventh's 
 papa worked in the ship-yard, helping mend the
 
 The Lucky Number. 85 
 
 tall ships which came in from the Mediter- 
 ranean. There were always several tipped up 
 on their sides, which made them look as if 
 wrecked ; and men were always busy hammer- 
 ing and sawing and making holes in them, to 
 fill up again with tarred rope and other things. 
 There were also new ships being built and 
 launched continually, and seldom did Settima 
 and the other seven fail to witness the launch- 
 ing, and cheer as wildly as if it were a new 
 thing. It always was a new thing. The ship- 
 yard was Settima's playground, and chips and 
 shavings her playthings. All through the sum- 
 mer days she was very happy there : in the 
 winter it was a little harder; for Italian winters 
 are, I think, a little colder than Arctic ones, and 
 Italian houses are much colder than snow huts. 
 Besides, there was less work then. Settima's 
 papa thought himself fortunate if he had two 
 days' work in the week. With eight francs a 
 week he could feed his ten well; but when it 
 came to four francs it was harder to feed them 
 well; and when it came to no francs it was 
 quite impossible to feed them at all. And for 
 ten to be without food is just ten times hungrier 
 than for one to be foodless.
 
 86 The Lucky Number. 
 
 What Settima's papa called "feeding them 
 well " was giving them all one meal of polenta 
 or farinata Indian meal or flour a day. 
 Settima's mamma cooked one or the other with 
 water, making of it a good, hard ball which she 
 cut into slices to go around. If one was 
 thirsty, one drank water with it. Nobody ever 
 had quite so much as he could have eaten, even 
 at the one meal ; but then, nobody expected it, 
 so nobody grumbled. What was hard was 
 when one had to go a whole twenty-four hours 
 at a time with no polenta or farinata. Settima's 
 papa looked sober at such times; Settima's 
 mamma, on the other hand, tried to look espe- 
 cially cheerful. Anything but polenta or fari- 
 nata no one dreamed of having at any time, 
 any more than new clothes in winter ; and as 
 for anything in the nature of a pleasure or toy, 
 Settima would as soon have expected the 
 golden sun to drop into her lap. 
 
 It is true she did dream sometimes of a cav- 
 allino, a toy horse ; but that was because a 
 very rich little boy, such as Settima supposed 
 the king's son might be, came one day to see a 
 ship launched, trailing behind him a beautiful 
 wooden horse on rollers, with a gay leather har-
 
 The Lucky Number. 87 
 
 ness and saddle. Settima and the six stood 
 speechless, gazing at this wonder; they forgot 
 entirely to look at the launch, and the boat slid 
 into the water without one of the seven pairs of 
 eyes seeing. The boy, who held the wooden 
 horse by a cord, let it fall to clap his hands with 
 delight. He must certainly be a prince, for he 
 had on a velvet suit with a wide collar of lace, 
 and not a patch anywhere. Then, how care- 
 lessly he held that wonder of a horse, quite 
 as if it were nothing to him ! 
 
 Settima touched her eldest sister's arm. 
 
 " Is it the Principino f " she asked, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 For she had always heard the Prince of Italy 
 called so, and did not know that he was grown 
 up, and only called the " little Prince " by his 
 people, because they love him, just as she 
 herself was called " Settanina" the " little 
 Seventh." 
 
 Marianna was wiser. 
 
 " They are forestieri, strangers, from the 
 other part of the town ; there are many such." 
 
 Marianna went often to sell chestnuts where 
 the fine houses were. Settima was too little for 
 that, and few strangers came to the ship-yard.
 
 88 The Lucky Number. 
 
 "Have they all cavallini?" asked she in 
 awe. 
 
 "Ma chl! all of them," replied Marianna, 
 promptly; " cavallini and dolls and carts and 
 parasols and silk dresses." Her eyes wandered 
 admiringly to the soft silk dress of the lady 
 with the Principino; to her it seemed splendid. 
 It was too far removed for her to covet it envi- 
 ously, but for a long time afterwards she 
 dreamed of a blue silk gown, as Settima did of 
 the cavallino. Every one of the eight had his 
 or her secret dream, but no one of them ever 
 dreamed of its being more than a dream. It 
 was only Settima who 
 
 " It all came of being a lucky number," as 
 Settima's mamma said. 
 
 For seven is a lucky number all the world 
 over; and the little Seventh was just seven 
 years old when her surpassing good fortune 
 befell her. 
 
 First it was the fever. For so many days 
 there was little or no polenta, and after these 
 days the nights were so cold, especially when 
 one had pawned the sheets and blankets. It 
 was just as cold for everybody ; but of course it 
 was Settima who had the luck to fall ill, not
 
 The Lucky Number. 89 
 
 very good luck, it seemed at first, but you can- 
 not tell the end from the beginning. 
 
 She was very ill indeed. All her pretty 
 golden curls were shorn close, and on the 
 seventh day the doctor said : 
 
 " She will be dead before night" 
 
 The unlucky little Seventh, and the Seventh's 
 poor parents ! 
 
 The superintendent of the yard sent word to 
 Settima's papa that there was a bit of work for 
 him, so he kissed his little girl a last good-bye 
 and went out wiping his eyes ; for no one had 
 eaten since yesterday morning, and he could not 
 let the other seven starve in order that he might 
 see the little Seventh die. Settima's mamma 
 left Marianna in charge, while she herself went 
 from house to house, from neighbor to neigh- 
 bor, asking from all something to bury the 
 little Settima in. In Italy the dead are buried 
 quickly ; and there was nothing left in the house ; 
 she could not take the clothes from the living to 
 bury the little sister in, for the living had so 
 few. 
 
 Among other places she went to Brigitta's 
 shop, the home of the polenta and farinata. 
 And so full of trouble was Settima's mamma
 
 90 The Lucky Number. 
 
 that she began to tell her story before she saw 
 that Brigitta was talking to a stranger, a lady 
 in a blue silk dress who was inquiring the way 
 somewhere and held by the hand a small boy in 
 a velvet suit who had in his hand a wooden 
 cavallino. 
 
 Brigitta and the lady both listened, and Brig- 
 itta went to the back room and brought out a 
 small white chemise. 
 
 "It was my Berta's," she said, wiping her 
 eyes. "Take it for the poor little one, she 
 will see my Berta soon, and have courage ! " 
 
 The lady looked kindly, but said nothing, and 
 Settima's mother did not think this strange. 
 She knew that the lady belonged to quite an- 
 other world than hers. She cast one glance at 
 the beautiful boy, who might be just her Set- 
 tima's age, and went out with the chemise. 
 
 But all the people in her own world under- 
 stood. 
 
 "Take it," said one; "it was my Chiara's 
 child's." 
 
 " Poor little one ! " said another, " I have not 
 a rag, but here are two cents to help." 
 
 When she came home she had a little pile of 
 garments in her arms and several cents in her 
 pocket, enough to bury Settima.
 
 The Lucky Number. 91 
 
 In the doorway stood Marianna, and when 
 she saw her mother she ran to meet her. 
 
 " The little Seventh is going to get well ! " she 
 cried. " She is going to get well, the Dottore 
 says so." 
 
 Settima's mamma almost dropped the load 
 from her arms ; her heart jumped so. 
 
 It was quite true. The little Seventh had 
 awakened from her heavy sleep, and just when 
 every one had given her up began to get well. 
 
 When Brigitta came in presently to see how 
 the child looked in her grave-clothes, there lay 
 the garments on a chair and the child on the 
 bed staring at her with wide-open eyes. Very 
 pleased was Brigitta. She went up to the bed 
 and smiled. 
 
 "Well," she said, "Settanina, a fine fright 
 you gave us. You know me now, don't you ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied Settima, " I know your voice; 
 you are Brigitta." 
 
 " Know my voice ? why, what 's the matter 
 with my face if you don't know that too ? " 
 
 " I can't see your face in the dark," said Set- 
 tima. 
 
 " She is not herself yet, poverina" said Brig- 
 itta, shaking her head pitifully.
 
 92 The Lucky Number. 
 
 But Settima was herself ; only, she was blind. 
 
 At first her father and mother could not be- 
 lieve it. 
 
 " The good God would not save her and not 
 save her eyes. He would know that would be 
 worst of all," they said. 
 
 " Better He had taken her to Himself," they 
 said, when they found it was really so. 
 
 " Better the child were dead ; " for what would 
 become of her? With eyes and hands it is 
 hard enough, the poor know, to make one's 
 bread, and when one loses either, what happens ? 
 When one cannot work one is better dead, 
 the poor know. And how could the child ever 
 work now? 
 
 She suffered, the poor little Seventh ; it seemed 
 as if she might as well be any other number. 
 One eye was hideously swollen, it must be 
 taken out, the doctor said. The other might be 
 saved, but it would be necessary to go to the 
 city where the great hospital and wise doctors 
 were, and that would cost money. 
 
 They tried, however. Settima's parents went 
 about among their friends and neighbors ; and 
 this one gave a centesimo, and that one a soldo, 
 for every one realized it would be better the
 
 The Lucky Number. 93 
 
 unlucky child had died, unless that eye were 
 saved. But among them they could not raise 
 soldi enough to pay the fares to the city, saying 
 nothing of the charges there. 
 
 "She is a child of misfortune!" exclaimed 
 the father, in despair. 
 
 She is truly a child of misfortune," said all, 
 sympathetically for you see no one could 
 foresee. 
 
 " She is truly a child of misfortune," said 
 Brigitta to the lady to whom she told the whole 
 story while she tied up a package of raisins. 
 
 "Is it the same child of the woman who was 
 here the other day?" asked the Principind's 
 mother quickly. 
 
 " The same, Signora, and she is born to mis- 
 fortune ; some are so," answered Brigitta, shak- 
 ing her head while she smiled at the Princi- 
 pino's curls and blue eyes opened saucer-wide 
 to listen. There was nothing the matter with 
 the Principino's eyes, evidently ; he was not 
 born to misfortune. The Principino's mother 
 also looked at him and perhaps she thought the 
 same thing. It must have been something of 
 the kind, for the next morning while Settima's 
 mamma was washing, glancing with mournful
 
 94 The Lucky Number. 
 
 eyes now and then at the little girl, who sat 
 listening to the other children playing, as she 
 must sit the rest of her life listening, a car- 
 riage, actually a carriage drove up, and in 
 rushed Brigitta. 
 
 Such a rush of words as came in with her. 
 Settima's mamma caught but half of them ; but 
 that half was enough to tell her she was to take 
 Settima then, that very minute, and go straight 
 to the city, where Settima's eyes were to be 
 made whole ; and that the somebody who was 
 doing all this had sent a carriage, for there was 
 just time to catch a train, and it did n't matter 
 about washing the child, because they would 
 do that at the hospital. This was enough for 
 Settima's mamma to know. She did not stop 
 to inquire whether it was an angel sent by God 
 himself, or only another mother who was doing 
 this; but in her own mother's heart she knew 
 that it was quite right and natural that some- 
 body should give the child her sight. 
 
 While Brigitta picked up a shawl and hand- 
 kerchief and tied the little Settima in them, her 
 mother took half the few centesimi in the house 
 and slipped them, with a clean handkerchief, 
 into her pocket ; she knew for what purpose.
 
 The Lucky Number. 95 
 
 Then they hurried into the carriage and 
 drove to the station, Settima holding her breath 
 with delight and awe to think of being behind 
 a live cavallino. At the station, Brigitta bought 
 the tickets and carried the child to a third-class 
 compartment, while the mother slipped away to 
 a vendor's stand near by. As she paid her 
 coppers, the bell rang. She started, and with 
 trembling hands tied her purchases into the 
 handkerchief and hurried away. The bell rang 
 still as she rushed down the platform, her 
 wooden sabots clattering at every step. The 
 guard was already closing the doors. Settima's 
 mamma slipped her feet from the sabots, and 
 leaving them standing in the middle of the plat- 
 form, ran stocking-footed and fast as a deer 
 to the train. Brigitta seized and pulled her in, 
 just as the guard slammed the door; but she 
 had the handkerchief fast in her hand. 
 
 On the way to the city, while she recovered 
 her breath, she heard from Brigitta all the 
 story ; how the Principino's mother had left the 
 money in Brigitta's hands to give to Settima's 
 parents, and that the child was to stay in the 
 hospital until the eye was quite well. It all 
 sounded like a fairy tale, and Settima's mamma
 
 96 The Lucky Number. 
 
 had to assure herself frequently, by glancing at 
 her stocking feet, that it was not all a dream. 
 
 Settima was in no dream ; unless it was a 
 nightmare. As the train drew near the city her 
 heart beat faster and faster. What place was 
 this hospital they were taking her to ? and what 
 might not the strange doctors do to her ? Her 
 heart beat still faster as they trudged through 
 the city streets. Her mamma's feet went noise- 
 lessly in their stockings over the damp stones, 
 but Settima's made such a clattering that every- 
 one turned to look curiously, for in the city 
 they do not wear sabots, as in the villages, still 
 less do they go in stocking-feet. When at last 
 they came to the hospital, Settima's heart sank, 
 quite down into her sabots. If it had been pos- 
 sible, she would have run away; but where 
 could a little blind girl run to ? She felt some 
 one lead her through long halls and into a 
 room, and some one else drew her forward and 
 lifted the bandage, making her scream out with 
 pain and terror. Then there was a great deal 
 of talking, and some one said : 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 Some one else said they " might save this, but 
 that must be taken out." Were they going to
 
 The Lucky Number. 97 
 
 take out her eyes? wondered the poor little 
 Seventh ; if so she should certainly die. She 
 clung desperately to her mother's hand, who 
 kept saying : 
 
 " Courage ! courage ! " while the tears were 
 running from her own eyes; but that the little 
 Settima could not see, luckily. 
 
 Presently they went upstairs to a long room 
 where were many children with nurses and 
 kind-faced Sisters taking care of them. One 
 of these took Settima in charge, and smiled so 
 cheerfully that Settima's mother felt her heart 
 rise again. It rose still more when she saw the 
 dinner brought in for all the children, and Set- 
 tima was put down at a table to eat with the 
 rest. There was soup, and after that meat 
 and chicken and a vegetable and wine and 
 bread, as much as one could eat. Settima's 
 mamma stood by with her eyes fastened upon 
 Settima, following every mouthful down her 
 throat. It tasted well to Settima, who had 
 never in her life eaten such things ; but to the 
 mother there was a heavenly flavor in every 
 morsel which passed her child's lips. It was a 
 pure feast. 
 
 Finally Brigitta nudged her. 
 7
 
 98 The Lucky Number. 
 
 " Now is the time," she whispered sagely, 
 and Settima's mamma came back to earth with 
 a pang. How could she leave her darling to 
 the surgeon's knives ? 
 
 " She will eat like this every day, twice a 
 day, besides the coffee in the morning," said 
 Brigitta, encouragingly. 
 
 " Leave her to us," said the Sister, pityingly ; 
 " You wish her to have her sight again. Courage, 
 and trust in God ! " 
 
 It must be. Settima's mamma knew it, but 
 who was to make Settima know ? Brigitta gave 
 them a wise look. 
 
 " Leave it to me." She turned to the little 
 girl. " Settanina, the Signora said you were to 
 have a gingtllo, a toy, to play with, shall I get 
 you a doll ? " 
 
 Settima dropped the spoon and clasped her 
 hands; the heart which had been beating so 
 heavily ever since she entered the hospital 
 suddenly leaped into her throat. It was all 
 she could do to utter : 
 
 " Oh, not a doll, not a doll, a cavallino" 
 She turned her sightless eyes to them. 
 
 "Very well," said Brigitta, "your mamma 
 and I will go to buy the cavallino?
 
 The Lucky Number. 99 
 
 "Also I," cried Settima, starting up blindly; 
 but the Sister laid two gentle hands upon her 
 shoulders. 
 
 " You cannot, carina" she said gently. "It 
 will hurt your eyes ; let the mamma go." 
 
 Settima had an agonized moment of hesita- 
 tion between a vague fear and the ecstasy of a 
 possible possession. 
 
 " I shall truly have the cavallino ? " 
 
 " Ma chl ! " laughed Brigitta, " what a bam- 
 bino, ! Of course. There are plenty of caval- 
 lini in the city, are n't there, Suora? " 
 
 " Yes," said the Sister, doubtfully. She looked 
 from them to the child, but said nothing. 
 
 " Then go, go, and come back quick, quick ! " 
 panted the little Seventh desperately. Her 
 mamma stooped and kissed her; as she did so, 
 she thrust a handkerchief tied at the corners 
 into her hand. 
 
 " It is for you, Nina mia," she murmured 
 softly, and then wrapping her head in her shawl 
 to smother her sobs, hurried after Brigitta. 
 
 " That was well done," said Brigitta, with a 
 satisfied nod, when they were safe outside the 
 hospital. " A few minutes, when she finds we 
 don't come back, and then she will forget all
 
 ioo The Lucky Number. 
 
 about it. The Suora says she will lack for 
 nothing. You are a lucky woman, Anna, she 
 will have her sight again. 
 
 But Settima's mother did not answer ; instead 
 she reeled heavily against the wall of the build- 
 ing. 
 
 " Ctef CM.'" said Brigitta, kindly ; " what 's 
 this ? " She put an arm about her, but it was a 
 minute before the poor Anna could speak. 
 
 " It is the feeling for the child, and I ran this 
 morning, nothing else," she murmured shame- 
 facedly. 
 
 But Brigitta's sharp eyes were not to be de- 
 ceived so. 
 
 " You came off fasting, Anna, you had not 
 eaten this morning," she said, reproachfully; 
 and Settima's mamma could not contradict her, 
 for she never did eat in the morning. Though 
 she had feasted divinely on Settima's dinner, it 
 was true no food had passed her lips. 
 
 " Yes, yes," continued Brigitta, " I know all 
 about it, and now " she strode briskly on. 
 
 Settima's mamma followed helplessly. She 
 seemed to have no spirit left. Without a word 
 of remonstrance she followed Brigitta into a 
 trattoria, and sat down at a table without a word
 
 The Lucky Number. 101 
 
 of comment, although she began to think Bri- 
 gitta crazy when she heard her order bread, 
 soup, meat, vegetables, and then, yes, evi- 
 dently she was quite crazy, for she called for 
 red wine. Settima's mamma uttered a terrified 
 exclamation. 
 
 " You are going to eat this once, Anna, if you 
 never do again," said Brigitta, energetically. 
 " Just leave it to me ; I know what I am about." 
 
 She insisted upon her eating, and the poor 
 Anna hardly knew herself when she had tasted 
 the meat and wine and bread. 
 
 " That lucky little Settima will eat as much 
 every day," said Brigitta, and Settima's mother 
 sat rapt in the sweetness of that thought. She 
 looked longingly at the things before her. How 
 willingly she would have gone without all, if she 
 might have carried it home to the others. And 
 she felt a pang when she saw the size of the bill 
 the waiter brought, forty soldi for all. 
 
 Brigitta nodded with an air of satisfaction. 
 
 " There ! " she said, " that 's better than wast- 
 ing money on a gingillo. The Signora really 
 meant me to buy one, but the promise did just 
 as well, and soldi are better eaten ; there are too 
 many hungry folk in the world."
 
 IO2 The Lucky Number. 
 
 Settima's mamma felt another pang. She 
 was ashamed of herself but she longed to cry 
 out: 
 
 " Oh, get the child a cavallino, if the Signora 
 meant it," but she was too much ashamed. 
 What Brigitta said was true : who were they to 
 spend money on toys when so many were hun- 
 gry? Nevertheless, her heart would yearn for 
 that toy, and she looked at the empty dishes, 
 how gladly she would have gone without, if she 
 had known, and now it was spent A lump 
 rose in her throat, as if it were the dinner which 
 choked her, as well it might, considering that 
 she had eaten a cavallino, Settima's caval- 
 lino. She looked wistfully at Brigitta, but 
 Brigitta was rising to go, and she followed 
 humbly. 
 
 On the way to the station, she glanced fur- 
 tively at the cavallini in the shop-windows, and 
 the shop-windows seemed to be full of nothing 
 else. Of course she did not for a moment 
 consider the splendid and large ones with 
 carts and harnesses, but there were others, small 
 and plain. 
 
 " One of those," she thought, " to-night, when 
 the child is alone."
 
 The Lucky Number. 103 
 
 " Hurry, Anna, or we shall lose the train," 
 called Brigitta, good-naturedly. 
 
 Even one of those, thought Settima's mother, 
 as she hurried on, must cost the price of much 
 polenta; and with the others hungry, how 
 wicked it was to wish it, how wicked to 
 wish anything when God had sent an angel 
 to give Settima her sight. There was Luigi's 
 Chiara; no one had sent her to a hospital, 
 and she remained quite blind ; also Beppe at the 
 shop, and many more. Brigitta was right ; 
 she was a lucky woman and the child was a 
 lucky child. And when Brigitta pulled out 
 the money the Signora had left with her for 
 the fares and fees and medicines, Settima's 
 mother looked at it ; oddly enough, her first 
 thought was of how many cavallini it would 
 buy, then of how much food. 
 
 "Keep it, you, Brigitta," she said, with 
 sudden determination, pushing it away. 
 
 " Just as you will," said Brigitta, nothing loath, 
 but making a feint of hesitating. 
 
 " Yes," persisted Settima's mother firmly, " it 
 will be best so. If it were in our home, see 
 you, Brigitta, there are so many of us ; and 
 perhaps some night when there was no polenta^
 
 IO4 The Lucky Number. 
 
 we should be tempted, who can know ? Keep 
 it for us, Brigitta, for the child." 
 
 "Very well," replied Brigitta, willingly, "to 
 please you, Anna." 
 
 For Brigitta did dearly love to manage. 
 " There is not too much," she added, " for the 
 Signora is not rich, she says." 
 
 Meanwhile Settima's mother was thinking: 
 "At least the child has the other things." 
 And at that moment, Settima, having cried 
 herself tired for the cavallino that never came, 
 and the mother who had left her to whatever 
 horrible thing might be done to her, was being 
 coaxed by the Sister to stop crying, and in- 
 deed it hurt her eyes almost too much. The 
 Sister who was at her wits' end twenty times a 
 day and had learned to think of all things, be- 
 thought herself of the handkerchief, and pro- 
 posed to Settima to open it and see, or at least 
 feel what was in it. Between them they untied 
 the knots, spread it open, and there lay the 
 treasures Settima's mamma had purchased with 
 the price of half the family dinner that day, a 
 piece of coarse bread, half a dozen dried chest- 
 nuts without the shells, a few salted pumpkin- 
 seeds, and three raisins.
 
 The Lucky Number. 105 
 
 Settima's fingers went from one to the other ; 
 it was like a Befana basket, and all her own ; 
 but alas and alas ! it was not the cavallino. 
 When the nurse tucked her up that night in one 
 of the strangely white little beds, although she 
 put the handkerchief with two raisins and some 
 pumpkin seeds still in it under her pillow, there 
 were two bitter thoughts in the little Seventh's 
 heart, the dreadful to-morrow, when her eyes 
 were to be taken out, and the wooden cavallino^ 
 which she knew now she never should have in 
 all the world. 
 
 The dreadful to-morrow came; and while 
 Settima was being strangely experimented upon, 
 by big men with hands as gentle and tender as 
 the hands of women, Settima's mamma, on her 
 knees before a lighted candle in the village 
 church, was praying for the light of her darling's 
 eyes to be given her. The candle had not come 
 out of the Signora's fund ; it cost the whole 
 family dinner to buy it ; but who of all the fam- 
 ily would have wished to eat while their little 
 Settima was suffering unknown anguish so far 
 away? It was not a large candle ; it made no 
 brilliant show before the altar even in this dingy 
 little church ; but perhaps the appointed Angel,
 
 lo6 The Lucky Number. 
 
 who knows how much they stand for, takes es- 
 pecial count of the candles of the poor. 
 
 That night, when the candle was burned quite 
 out and Settima's mother went home, there 
 stood Brigitta with a message from the doctor, 
 who had a cousin in the village, to say that 
 Settima's sight had returned. One eye was gone, 
 but the other was as good as new. 
 
 " Settima can see ! Settima can see ! our 
 Settanina has her sight again ! " said all the 
 other children over and over again ; and every- 
 body rehearsed the good fortune. The child 
 was to remain at the hospital some days, to 
 become quite strong. 
 
 " And only think how she will eat all those 
 days," said Brigitta ; " it did not seem possible she 
 could ever be hungry again, the lucky child." 
 
 It did not really seem so to Settima herself, 
 who was so happy at the hospital now that she 
 wished never to leave it, so many children to 
 play with, and three meals a day, when one was 
 allowed to eat all one wished. And now that 
 she knew she should never have a cavallino in 
 this world, she had wisely given up thinking 
 about it, except at moments. 
 
 Everybody said how well it had gone with the
 
 The Lucky Number. 107 
 
 little Settima, and Brigitta told the Principind's 
 mother who came in a carriage with the Prin- 
 cipino, to inquire all about it ; how one eye 
 was gone and one eye was as good as new, and 
 how much they were giving her to eat, and 
 about the dinner she had made the mother eat 
 out of money saved from the gingillo so cleverly, 
 and what a lucky child altogether that Settima 
 had proved. 
 
 " Then" said \htPrinciptno 1 s mother, rather 
 faintly, when all was told, " the child has never 
 had the little horse after all." She looked at 
 the Principino and he at her. 
 
 "It is too late," said the Principino 's 
 mother, and the Principino looked very sober. 
 Then his face brightened. 
 
 "But I have my new franc," he said. He 
 put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a mite 
 of a purse, and out of this he pulled a bright 
 new franc-piece which he laid in Brigitta's palm. 
 
 " It is to buy her a horse," he explained. 
 "She has to have a horse, my horse has 
 gone away." 
 
 The Principles mother did not interfere ; 
 she laid a two-franc piece with his. 
 
 "Yours would not be enough, Robin," she
 
 io8 The Lucky Number. 
 
 said. " We are going away ourselves," she 
 added, turning to Brigitta, " and we wish the 
 child to have the toy ; please see that she 
 does." 
 
 " And we are so glad that she can see," 
 shouted back Robin, after the carriage had 
 started. 
 
 " So that child is to have a gingillo, after all," 
 said Brigitta to Settima's mother. "And it is 
 not so bad," she added, " for it will console her 
 for coming home." 
 
 Some consolation was needed; for when 
 Brigitta, who had business in the city, went to 
 bring Settima home, Settima was not eager to 
 come. Much as she wished to see her father 
 and mother and the troop of children, it was 
 hard to leave a place where one played all day 
 long and ate three times a day. 
 
 " We are going to buy a cavallino" said 
 Brigitta, coaxingly. 
 
 " I don't believe it," returned the little Seventh, 
 calmly. 
 
 And she did not believe it : even when Brigitta 
 took her into a shop where there were hundreds 
 of cavallint, not even then did the little 
 Seventh believe. She looked with awe and
 
 The Lucky Number. 109 
 
 wonder. There were cavallini as fine as the 
 Principind's, yes, even finer; cavallini with 
 gay harnesses, with saddles, with carts, 
 cavallini of all colors and sizes. Brigitta paid 
 no attention to these. She picked out a plain 
 white wooden horse on rollers : it was unpainted, 
 it had no harness, no saddle, and it was not many 
 inches high, but it was still a cavallino. It 
 was worth six cents, the shopman said, and after 
 some grumbling, Brigitta paid it. It went to 
 her heart to pay six cents for a.gingillo, but she 
 had promised the Signora, and she was a woman 
 of her word : she comforted herself with think- 
 ing of the two francs and a half and more, still 
 left for polenta. 
 
 When the cavallino was actually thrust in 
 Settima's arms, they could scarcely hold it 
 Her little body trembled from head to foot, and 
 it was all she could do to follow Brigitta to the 
 station. She thought no more of the hospital, 
 no more of the Sisters, no more of the three 
 meals a day ; only of the wonder of the family 
 when she returned with a cavallino, and of that 
 greater wonder, the cavallino itself. In the 
 train she touched Brigitta's arm.
 
 IIO The Lucky Number. 
 
 " Are you sure it will not run away ? " she 
 asked very low. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The cavallino" 
 
 " Ma chl ! " said Brigitta, laughing. 
 
 A little later she touched Brigitta's arm again. 
 
 " But even in the night, I mean, will it not 
 run away ? " 
 
 " Ma chl > " said Brigitta again, with greater 
 emphasis than before. 
 
 Settima held it fast, however; it would be 
 wiser, she felt, to take no chances. 
 
 And presently they reached the village and 
 Settima's home. 
 
 There were all her family and the neighbors 
 and the seven children in a row before the door, 
 waiting. How they did crowd about and won- 
 der and admire ! 
 
 The other children looked on with envy. 
 Here was Settima come home, who had eaten 
 bread and meat three times a day, if one 
 could believe that, and had come back with a 
 cavallino. It was true she had lost an eye, but 
 then, Cosimo would have given both of his 
 for such another toy. These things only hap-
 
 The Lucky Number. in 
 
 pen, however, to people who are born to good 
 fortune. 
 
 " It all comes of being a lucky number," said 
 Brigitta. 
 
 And they looked in silent envy and admiration 
 where she stood clasping her cavallino, the 
 lucky, lucky little Seventh !
 
 COULEUR DE ROSE.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 i. 
 
 IT began on that day when Haydon, tired of 
 prizes and medals and studios and students and 
 the praises of some and the criticism of more, 
 demolished with one sweep of the brush the 
 study he had been working upon for days, and 
 dismissed his model. 
 
 There were always plenty of students loung- 
 ing in Haydon's studio. In the first place he 
 was popular on his own account, and in the 
 second he was regarded as a pupil likely to be a 
 master some day. Could one doubt it ? look 
 at his drawing his anatomy and even 
 (though as he was a painter this was naturally a 
 matter of minor importance) his color. For 
 Haydon was that rare bird, a man who can both 
 draw and color. His technique was masterly ; 
 the most envious competitor had to admit it;
 
 Ii6 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 and if he walked off with all the prizes, it was 
 not without fairly earning them. Very few men 
 worked so hard as Haydon. He knew more of 
 anatomy than Angelo, more of chemistry than 
 Leonardo, and at least as much of perspective 
 as Paolo Uccello himself. Added to this he 
 knew so many things none of them knew at all 
 and yet Haydon felt he was only at the be- 
 ginning of knowledge. 
 
 Because of all this there were always students 
 ready to jump at the chance of sharing the 
 expense of his model, for the sake of working 
 from the nude in his studio. To work in one's 
 own studio instead of the schools was, in itself, 
 a distinction ; it argued positive courage for a 
 man to take himself seriously enough for that; 
 but Haydon was a "strong man," in the argot 
 of the schools, and could afford to take himself 
 seriously. Besides, he showed no symptoms 
 whatever of departing from the traditions; on 
 the contrary, he only became an intensified 
 
 " pupil of ; " and that flattered not only 
 
 the pride of that particular great man, but of the 
 schools. 
 
 And now the Salon was beginning to cast its 
 shadow before, and every man who had ever
 
 Couleur de Rose. 117 
 
 exhibited, and every man who hoped to exhibit 
 was sending his eyes far and wide about him, if 
 haply he might discern within the horizon any- 
 thing in the way of a taking " color scheme," 
 a difficulty of foreshortening, a dazzling effect, 
 or undiscovered composition. Impressionists, 
 plein air, symbolists, and realists, they were all 
 in full cry ; and this was the moment Haydon 
 took to cast down his brushes and vow to aston- 
 ish them all. He professed himself sick of 
 lavenders and grays and drabs, and averred his 
 conviction that there were other hues in the 
 world even more, others worth painting. 
 
 The men looked at him rather soberly ; they 
 began to think that the grippe had told upon 
 Haydon more than they realized, and that the 
 hacking cough which he had never been able 
 to throw off had pulled the poor fellow down 
 considerably. 
 
 " I 'm afraid you '11 turn out an impressionist 
 yet," said Meredith, slowly, shaking his head ; 
 " you Ve talked about color more than a bit 
 lately." 
 
 "It would be a comfort to turn out some- 
 thing," said Haydon, irritably ; he had a little 
 access of coughing.
 
 u8 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 There was an interchange of glances which 
 said compassionately, " Humor him," and Kent 
 inquired mildly what the new scheme was 
 to be. 
 
 " Something with color enough to make you 
 green!" answered Haydon, crossly, conscious 
 of the internal working of his companions' 
 minds. " I '11 out-Rubens Rubens. I will paint 
 a woman, and she sha'n't have a green or a 
 yellow or a lavender in her whole body. I will 
 make her of all the carnations that grow ; I '11 
 give her my old-rose shawl for a scarf and the 
 morning for a halo." 
 
 " It is taking a good deal of trouble for a lob- 
 ster," said Meredith ; " but if you like it, go 
 ahead." 
 
 "You will call her a Venus, of course," 
 remarked Lestrange, cynically. 
 
 " No, thank you ! " said Haydon, dryly. 
 
 " I don't hold with big titles myself," com- 
 mented Kent, approvingly. "Call things by 
 their names, I say ; call it ' figure of a woman, 
 nude.' " 
 
 " Hang the name ! " said Haydon, impatiently. 
 " And the woman, too ; she is only a part of the 
 color scheme."
 
 Couleur de Rose. 119 
 
 " That 's all she ever is," put in the philosoph- 
 ical Kent, aside. 
 
 Meredith was fingering the old-rose crepe. 
 " You might call it ' Couleur de Rose? " sug- 
 gested he ; " that would answer for the shawl and 
 the scheme and the woman," he added, sar- 
 donically. 
 
 Haydon looked at him, pleased, as he said 
 slowly : " That 's not a bad idea." 
 
 " All very pretty," said Kent ; " but what I 
 want to know is, where you are going to get 
 your tarnation excuse me, your carnation 
 model. May I ask if you have one ' under the 
 rose ' now ? " 
 
 " No," said Haydon. " But I know where to 
 find her," he added, suddenly. 
 
 A week later he packed his things and went 
 in search of her. It was not his first visit to 
 Italy. He had a tolerably clear notion of what 
 he was about. For years he had carried in his 
 brain dim images of certain little towns in the 
 Riviera di Levante, through which he had 
 hastily flitted, and of the splendid beauty of 
 their sea-bred women, and he had promised him- 
 self more than once to look up both again. So 
 as soon as he had stepped from the train and
 
 I2O Couleur de Rose. 
 
 deposited his bags at the small albergo which 
 remained open and empty, he set out for a walk 
 about the diminutive town. His nervousness 
 had decreased and his spirits risen with every 
 mile from Paris; now he was too buoyantly 
 excited to keep still. 
 
 He had chosen this particular town because 
 he judged it would be deserted in winter and 
 it was. There was something almost ghostly in 
 its streets of closed houses, row upon row, until 
 one went far back from the water-front into the 
 poorer quarter of the town, when it burst into a 
 life exaggeratedly tumultuous as the other was 
 exaggeratedly still. It seemed to Haydon that 
 there were twenty children to every house. And 
 here were the women ! He cast keenly critical 
 glances at them and patted himself mentally 
 upon the head for his astuteness. 
 
 Junos, every one of them, a type as fine as 
 the Roman, with something of the open sea, 
 which the Roman has not ; a type totally unlike 
 the Tuscan. Haydon looked at the square brows 
 beneath clouds of dark hair, broad, calm brows, 
 at the fine eyes, broad-lidded and flashing, the 
 straight features, the beautiful lips and firm 
 chins, and the carriage of queens.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 121 
 
 " Superb ! " he said to himself. Among all 
 these Junos there must surely be his Venus. 
 With the same observant glance he took in the 
 details of poverty and squalor in the garments, 
 and the interiors thrown open to the sun and 
 the passer-by with equal indifference ; and he 
 noted that many of the faces were pinched and 
 the noble outlines meagrely filled. 
 
 " There will be no difficulty in getting them 
 to pose," he thought with self-gratulation min- 
 gled with pity ; " anything to turn a soldo, I 
 imagine." 
 
 He promised himself to come to-morrow and 
 make a leisurely and scrutinizing round again. 
 If necessary he was prepared to give some days 
 to the finding of his Venus ; and thus resolved 
 he turned his steps toward the sea. 
 
 In a very few minutes Haydon's feet were 
 treading the sands, and his eyes leaped forward 
 to meet the Mediterranean. There were the 
 old violets and purples and greens he remem- 
 bered so well, no other sea has such myste- 
 rious tints ; and again he praised himself for 
 coming. To his right stretched the fantastic 
 growth of the pine grove, with its life all at the 
 top, and above bloomed the Carraras, those
 
 122 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 violets of mountains. The air after Paris 
 was like Eden, and Haydon forgot his chest for 
 the first time in months. Down by the Molo 
 the long quay which ran its two arms into the 
 sea boats were coming in with sails looped in 
 the graceful fashion he never remembered to 
 have seen out of Italy, and the sun was going 
 down. The landscape slowly became a rose, 
 a mystic rose, flushed from end to end, from the 
 mountain tips to the horizon's verge ; the sails 
 were like rosy-winged birds flying home ; even 
 the shadows showed as deeper rose, and the 
 violet of the Carraras was full of vibrating rose 
 life. Far up the beach was a tiny village ; its 
 houses loomed in the reflection like a rose-phan- 
 tom. And suddenly Haydon knew why he had 
 come. 
 
 It was this which had haunted him with the 
 name of this village all the years. He remem- 
 bered it now perfectly ; he had never seen its 
 like elsewhere in any land of sunset splendors. 
 The waters had used to take on every shade 
 and lustre of rose, and ruby, and no mountains, 
 in Haydon's knowledge, blossomed like these. 
 No wonder the place had arisen with the 
 thought of the rose picture; indeed, he was
 
 Couleur de Rose. 123 
 
 never after able to resolve for himself whether 
 the picture had recalled the place or the place 
 itself had been a dim and haunting picture in his 
 brain all these years. Strange he should have 
 thought only of the women ! 
 
 A light mist began to rise and Haydon turned 
 his coat-collar up. 
 
 " What color ! " he murmured, ecstatically ; 
 and as he stood he fell into a reverie, planning 
 to himself how to reproduce those escaping 
 effects with oils and canvas. 
 
 Suddenly he became aware that it was grow- 
 ing cold. He drew his coat closer about him, 
 and turning away took the first narrow street 
 from the water-side and came full upon 
 Ginevra. 
 
 She was standing in a doorway, and Haydon 
 stopped with a gasp. Over her head hung a 
 sign: " Camere Ammobiliate." Hay don's eye 
 caught it. He removed his hat. 
 
 " There are, perhaps, rooms to let here ? " he 
 asked, in his broken Italian. 
 
 " SI, Signore," replied Ginevra. 
 
 " Can I see them ? " 
 
 " SI, Signore." 
 
 Haydon followed her upstairs mechanically.
 
 124 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 It might have been a palace or a hovel, to be 
 sure, the two are often one in Italy, Haydon 
 would have known no difference. Ginevra 
 threw open the shutters and let in the last sun- 
 rays. 
 
 " The sea sees itself from the terrace," said 
 she, tersely. Haydon stepped out on the little 
 balcony. The sun was just sinking and the 
 rose light brightening, there was his sky. 
 He turned back to the room, here was his 
 woman. 
 
 " I will take the rooms," he said. 
 
 Ginevra looked at him, and Haydon blushed. 
 
 " I mean that is if they are not too 
 dear," he said. 
 
 " Thirty francs," said Ginevra. 
 
 " It is a good deal " 
 
 " Thirty francs," said Ginevra. 
 
 " I will take them." Haydon glanced about ; 
 they were surprisingly clean, and neatly if 
 simply furnished; the bedroom was airy, the 
 salotto had a brick floor and a fireplace. 
 
 " You " Haydon looked at her and hesi- 
 tated. " You are the padrona? " 
 
 " Si, Signore." There was something partic- 
 ularly unflinching in Ginevra's accents.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 125 
 
 " You would perhaps be willing to give me 
 my dinners my coffee?" with persuasive 
 hesitancy. 
 
 " No, Signore." 
 
 " But I will pay well willingly." 
 
 " Impossible, Signore, there are the 
 bambini" 
 
 " But what am I to do ? I must eat." 
 
 Ginevra said nothing. She regarded him 
 obdurately. 
 
 " There is perhaps a hotel near ? " 
 
 " No, Signore." Ginevra eyed him with 
 manifest, tranquil indifference. 
 
 " Very well," said Haydon, " I shall come in 
 an hour." 
 
 " As you will," responded Ginevra, coldly. 
 
 " A nice, plastic nature ! " thought Haydon 
 as he went back to the hotel. " But I '11 go if 
 I starve, and I '11 paint her whether or no ; 
 every woman has her price," he added, 
 cynically. 
 
 The rest of the day and a good part of the 
 evening he spent in buying coffee, sugar, 
 petroleum, a spirit lamp, and hunting up a bread 
 man and a butter woman against the next 
 morning.
 
 126 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 Ginevra gave him no help. She brought up 
 the packages as they arrived, without com- 
 ment, and deposited them on his table. The 
 rooms were in perfect order and a fire already 
 laid. 
 
 Haydon tried his utmost not to stare at her, 
 or, at least, not to let her see him stare, but 
 he compensated himself whenever her eyes 
 were turned away. There was something 
 decidedly stony in her manner, and Haydon 
 wondered how a creature so beautiful could 
 be so little simpatica. He had not the 
 courage to broach any ulterior projects that 
 night, but lay long awake, his brain on fire with 
 the fever of the artist's unrealized vision. He 
 meditated plans for the morrow, and meanwhile 
 he posed her his model in every imaginary 
 attitude, and composed her in every possible 
 relation to the old rose shawl and the sunset. 
 He could hear an occasional voice of the bambini 
 downstairs, but no masculine tread or tone ; yet 
 there must be a husband somewhere to account 
 for the bambini. 
 
 " Some hulking brute of a sailor or lumber- 
 ingfacchino" he thought, with an artist's resent- 
 ment of the waste of beauty. " She is of the
 
 Couleur de Rose. 127 
 
 people ; it is the same type, only idealized. I 
 will paint her standing ; no, I will paint her half- 
 reclining." He mentally reviewed the poses of 
 the perfect figure. " I don't suppose she has ever 
 posed, and, perhaps, she will be a bit stiff about 
 it at first, but she is sure to give in in the end, 
 if only from vanity." 
 
 With the morning Haydon lay idly, hearing 
 the voices of the children and the tossing of 
 the sea ; then suddenly recalling that he was 
 his own housekeeper and cook, he arose pre- 
 cipitately and began his struggles with the spirit 
 lamp. His coffee, or the poor similitude, fin- 
 ished, he meditated upon the next step. He 
 could hear the bambini and Ginevra ; but hear- 
 ing was a poor substitute for seeing, and, 
 finally, he took a sketch-book and his hat and 
 sauntered out. 
 
 A child as beautiful as Ginevra stopped her 
 play to bid him felice giorno, and Haydon 
 could just see Ginevra over the kitchen table 
 with a bundle in her arms, another bambina 
 evidently. 
 
 " Patience ! " said Haydon to himself. 
 
 " Patience ! " he said the next day and the 
 day following, with growing impatience, as he
 
 128 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 strolled about town, trying to kill time in the 
 intervals between his anchorite repasts. He had 
 discovered little else besides eggs in the town, 
 by way of provender, and philosophically and 
 stoically sat himself down to these twice a day. 
 Going without eggs formed the one variation of 
 diet. Ginevra regarded all with a silent disdain, 
 in which Haydon once or twice, to his discom- 
 fiture, fancied he detected a gleam of secret and 
 malicious joy. Few and short were her words, 
 confined to strictly necessary inquiries as to his 
 fire or windows, and a laconic " Si, Signore," or 
 " No, Signore." Haydon would have believed 
 her incapable of speech but for the running 
 brook of laughter and song and conversation 
 which came bubbling up from below all day 
 long. Evidently Ginevra downstairs and 
 Ginevra upstairs were two different beings. If 
 she had been one whit less beautiful, Haydon 
 would have left in disgust after the first week 
 of eggs, but she was not ; indeed, it seemed to 
 him she was more beautiful daily, and the 
 oftener he turned to the back streets and 
 searched for another face and figure like hers, 
 the more resolutely he returned with the deter- 
 mination to stay till the last hen in the country 
 had ceased to lay.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 129 
 
 He had not the courage to ask Ginevra, 
 point-blank, to pose but he laid a trap. He 
 set up his easel, hired a small lounger in a red 
 beretta, and fell to drawing with great energy. 
 The next time Ginevra came in with her bronze 
 water-jar, she stopped and looked at the sketch. 
 
 " It is precisely Giacomo," she said. 
 
 " You think it resembles him ? " asked 
 Haydon, with meek diffidence. 
 
 " It is precisely he," repeated Ginevra. She 
 looked at Haydon with the first approving 
 glance she had bestowed. " The Signore has 
 really talent." 
 
 The often-praised Paris student blushed. 
 
 " Oh, if I had a subject I could do better than 
 this I If you would let me make a head of you, 
 Ginevra." He looked at her with studiedly 
 impersonal glance. 
 
 Ginevra returned the glance in kind and 
 with better success. 
 
 " To take away, or to leave here ? " she asked 
 calmly. 
 
 Haydon was confused. 
 
 "We could decide that later To leave 
 here," he added hastily as he saw her lift the 
 water-jar once more. 
 
 9
 
 130 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 But Ginevra shook her head. " I have not 
 time there are the bambini" She lifted 
 the bronze jar and walked off with a motion 
 which was the despair and delight of Haydon's 
 eyes. 
 
 There were always the bambini, it seemed to 
 him. He never by any chance caught sight of 
 her without one or more in her arms or hang- 
 ing to her skirts ; yet there were only three of 
 them actually : Maddelena, the eldest and most 
 beautiful, jolly little Dino, and Margheritina, 
 the big-eyed baby. Ginevra came to the door 
 one day with this last-named bambina in her 
 arms and a black shawl over her head, and 
 Haydon stopped to admire the baby. 
 
 For the first time he had a revelation of 
 Ginevra's smile. 
 
 " Only see how fat she is, Signore," she said, 
 with a deft gesture, stripping the swaddling 
 clothes aside and revealing a pair of bare and 
 dimpled legs from the waist to the toes. " Feel, 
 feel," she said encouragingly. Haydon diffi- 
 dently grasped a handful of dimples and fat 
 and was rewarded by a laugh from the baby 
 and another from the baby's mother. Then 
 Ginevra made the baby in all its unblushing
 
 Couleur de Rose. 131 
 
 nakedness dance on the top of the table for 
 Hay don's benefit, and the baby laughed and 
 Ginevra laughed and they cooed to one another 
 in an unknown tongue, ending in an ecstasy of 
 kisses beginning at the baby's head and termi- 
 nating where the baby terminated at the pink 
 toes. Haydon stood apart and watched this 
 holy little game with respect. 
 
 Finally Ginevra wrapped the baby uncere- 
 moniously in its clothes again and turned to 
 Haydon, flushed but calm. 
 
 " Your eggs have come, Signore." 
 
 Haydon blushed and went upstairs. 
 
 But he stopped often after that to admire 
 Margheritina, or toss Dino, or say a word to 
 Maddelena. In return Ginevra paused to cast a 
 glance upon his canvas or bestow a condescend- 
 ing word of approval. 
 
 " It takes a large head for that," she remarked 
 one day, gravely. 
 
 Haydon smiled but went on drawing. Time 
 had taught him wisdom ; he knew now that his 
 only hope of detaining her an instant was to 
 show nothing more than the slightest interest. 
 A glance of admiration, the tiniest personal 
 note, would cut short the friendliest interview,
 
 132 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 and though he was as far as ever from any 
 prospect of painting her, he experienced so 
 exquisite a pleasure in merely looking at her 
 that he would not imperil it. Besides, he did 
 not yet despair ; if not of a patient nature, he 
 could be patient when there was an end to gain. 
 If he might only obtain a sitting, any kind of 
 a sitting, permission to sketch her head, a 
 chance to establish the dangerous rapport of 
 artist and sitter, he thought he could answer for 
 the rest 
 
 It would have been much easier if Ginevra 
 had possessed an ordinary share of vanity, but 
 so far as he was able to discern she had none. 
 She was either unconscious of her beauty 
 which was incredible or indifferent to it. In 
 short, she was a greater mystery to Haydon 
 every day. She was never on the streets like 
 other women of the little town, cared nothing to 
 make a bella figitra, for which alone they 
 appeared to exist, and pursued a nonchalant and 
 self-contained life of her own in which neither 
 Haydon nor any other, except the bambini, bore 
 a part. He was thoroughly convinced that she 
 had a history, and he greatly wished he knew 
 who her husband was.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 133 
 
 We have an easy and satisfying way of 
 describing a man as "no better and no worse 
 than other men." Of Haydon this was quite 
 literally true. He was no better than other men, 
 and, perhaps, had he been a little worse than he 
 was he would really have been a good deal bet- 
 tar. He had been into no depths, whether of 
 good or ill, himself, and he looked for no depths 
 in others. His gifts were not despicable ; he 
 had the artist's sensitiveness to all external 
 things, and his art was an external thing. 
 Nature had bestowed upon him the eyes and 
 fingers of an artist, and he had cultivated both 
 remarkably well. Nature or somebody else had 
 also bestowed upon him a brain and soul, and 
 he had not cultivated them at all. He had been 
 so busy in becoming an artist that he had not 
 had time to become a man. There were no 
 dark passages in his life ; in fact, there was 
 nothing in his life except class-rooms and 
 studios and pictures and models, and an over- 
 whelming ambition to accomplish something 
 masterly in the way of a technical feat. To this 
 ambition he was capable of sacrificing much, 
 undoubtedly, and Ginevra, beyond the shadow 
 of a doubt, if he could. But his evil intentions
 
 134 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 were bounded by that, to bribe, or coax or 
 entrap her into serving as his model ; and if it 
 was not to be done without treading upon her 
 scruples, so much the worse for the scruples. 
 Art is art, and where else in the wide world was 
 he to find a woman capable of standing against 
 the rose of morning and eclipsing it with her 
 own dawn ? 
 
 He bided his time with a grim patience. 
 Meanwhile he made endless sketches, and 
 painted rose sunsets and dawns, in spite of 
 Ginevra's warnings against Maremma mists. 
 
 He had discovered at last who the husband of 
 Ginevra was, a waiter at one of the hotels in 
 Milan. With the summer season he returned to 
 the village to pursue his profession in the one 
 hotel there. 
 
 " It must be hard for you to be apart so much," 
 suggested Haydon, tentatively. 
 
 Ginevra shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " What would you ? we are poor people," she 
 replied. " Here are your eggs, Signore." 
 
 " Probably mighty glad to be apart," was 
 Haydon's mental comment 
 
 He had studied the populace and did not 
 admire the masculine type. There was a great
 
 Couleur de Rose. 135 
 
 deal he did not admire in the place. The town 
 itself was squalidly miserable. Haydon had 
 always felt in Paris that nothing could be so 
 depressing as the visible contrast of very rich 
 and very poor. Now it seemed to him there 
 was one thing worse, the unadulterated poverty 
 of the Riviera town. Its squalor displeased, its 
 dirt offended, and its monotony repelled him. 
 He concluded that there could not be, and he 
 trusted there were not, two places on the habi- 
 table globe so devoid of interest, so barren of 
 romance. Even the sea and sky wore upon him 
 at last, and he wondered why he still stayed. 
 He dragged himself up in the morning with a 
 greater effort each day, and ate his breakfasts 
 and dinners with a keener rebellion. The salt 
 of the sea and of his eggs had alike lost its 
 savor ; yet he stayed. 
 
 There came a morning, however, when he did 
 not drag himself up. All night long Ginevra in 
 rose-colored light had danced before his eyes 
 and in his brain, and when the morning rose 
 came flushing the room, he lay and watched it 
 and took it for a continuation of his dream. 
 Presently he turned his head carefully, on 
 account of the rockets and Catherine wheels
 
 136 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 within and looked at the little clock ticking on 
 the night table. Its hands pointed to ten. 
 Then it stole over Haydon deliciously that he 
 was too ill to rise he could lie there and starve 
 at his leisure. There was no one to summon 
 except Ginevra, and he would not summon her. 
 Besides, his every earthly desire limited itself to 
 that of lying still, knowing that Heaven itself 
 could expect nothing else of him. It was not 
 his duty to make coffee or boil eggs or scheme 
 through the hours of another day how to entrap 
 Ginevra into a rose-color study. 
 
 There is sweetness, no doubt, in the trium- 
 phant moment of success, but the moment of 
 entire defeat is sweet also. Haydon lay with 
 shut eyes, drawing the first happy breaths for 
 many weeks. To have purchased that peace of 
 spirit for an indefinite period he would willingly 
 have compounded with his splitting head and 
 the racking heat of all his members. He 
 reflected drowsily that in case he grew much 
 worse the Misericordia brotherhood that 
 strange black-cowled and robed fraternity he 
 had so often admired from a picturesque point 
 of view would come and carry him away to a 
 hospital or a grave, as the case might be ; either
 
 Couleur de Rose. 137 
 
 way he need not exert himself about it. Even 
 pictures, even Ginevra did not concern him now, 
 and as for the Salon, who but a triple idiot 
 could have thought it worth while to care if they 
 painted the whole thing lavender and drab ? Yet 
 there was color in the world ; that fact, as the 
 most daring discovery of Haydon's life, asserted 
 itself even at this moment with the tenacity of 
 a fixed idea. The color was but somebody 
 else could paint it ; somebody else could paint 
 yes, could paint Ginevra.
 
 138 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 II. 
 
 " THE next time I say Maremma mists the 
 Signore will listen to me," said Ginevra. 
 
 Haydon smiled a rather wan smile still ; and 
 Ginevra smiled too, but with a twinkle of some- 
 thing like tears in her eyes. She stooped and 
 blew the fire to a brighter blaze. 
 
 " And now what will the Signore have to eat ? 
 The doctor said you must eat, and you are pale 
 and thin, too " she stooped and blew the fire 
 again. " What will you eat, Signore ? " 
 
 " Nothing, thank you, Ginevra," answered 
 Haydon, gratefully. " I have been a great deal 
 of trouble to you," he added, regretfully. 
 
 Ginevra laughed. 
 
 "Oh, altro! trouble! I did it willingly. 
 But I am not going to have the Signore sick 
 again. Do you know the cause of it all ? " She 
 fixed her eyes severely upon Haydon. 
 
 " Maremma mists," assented Haydon, meekly. 
 
 " That is true," assented Ginevra, " but also
 
 Couleur de Rose. 139 
 
 eggs. How is it possible to keep well when one 
 eats nothing that sustains ? always eggs, eggs ! " 
 She cast a disdainful glance at the basket 
 which was wont to hold the dainty. "And 
 moreover that costs ; eggs are dear, now. Do 
 you know what you ought to eat, Signore ? 
 broth, good, strong brodo of meat." 
 
 " Ginevra," said Haydon, looking squarely at 
 her, "there is nothing in the world I like so 
 much as broth, but you see yourself I cannot 
 make it here." 
 
 " And why should you ? " said Ginevra, tran- 
 quilly, " to make a little broth is not to make 
 the kitchen. If you like to have me buy the 
 meat I will make it with ours when I make 
 that for the bambini ; the Signore is as capable 
 of taking care of himself as a bambino" 
 
 "Ah! Ginevra, if you would! "said Haydon, 
 with the gratitude of weakness. " But you have 
 too many bambini to take care of already." 
 
 " Altro ! one more or less," replied Ginevra, 
 cheerfully ; departing with a smile which Hay- 
 don, his head upon the pillows of the chair, lay 
 dreaming upon for hours after. 
 
 He had lost a week out of life, but a week 
 was a small matter. That he had survived the
 
 140 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 drugs of the Italian doctor, Haydon, who had 
 the aational distrust of things foreign, attrib- 
 uted to the counterbalancing effects of Ginevra's 
 nursing. He wondered if he had said in his 
 delirious wanderings all the things he had 
 thought ; but he reflected comfortingly that he 
 might rave in his Italian with nearly the same 
 security as in English. What did he know, and 
 it was the only thing he knew clearly, was that 
 he had been tended with that womanly and 
 tender skill which he had supposed to inhere 
 only in the heart of his own mother, but now 
 began to think must be an attribute of all 
 womankind. 
 
 There was in his heart a little painful sense 
 that he had not deserved this at the hands of 
 Ginevra; he felt strangely guilty toward her. 
 Certainly he had intended her no wrong ; but 
 that did not prevent a conviction that she would 
 have resented his intentions as a wrong, had 
 she known them, and unaccountable vagary 
 of a sick mind to save his so lately jeopar- 
 dized life, Haydon could not help feeling himself 
 that they had not been precisely an honor. 
 
 Meanwhile Ginevra had, without doubt, 
 graduated him from the rank of her lodger to
 
 Couleur de Rose. 141 
 
 that of her patient ; her eyes and voice had a 
 frank kindliness in them when she looked or 
 spoke. It was evidently not in her nature to do 
 things by halves. In vain Haydon remon- 
 strated that one, or that two, at least that three 
 dinners in a day were enough ; Ginevra con- 
 tinued tranquilly to appear morning, noon, night, 
 and at all times between, with soups and roasts 
 and pastas and risottos and all the other savory 
 dishes an Italian alone knows the secret of ; and 
 she had but one reply to his remonstrances, 
 
 " Signore, you are to eat!" 
 
 And Haydon did eat Ginevra regarded him 
 with a satisfied air, and nodded her beautiful 
 head in approval. 
 
 " That sustains, that makes strength ; but 
 eggs, altro ! " 
 
 Haydon blushed to think how very low he 
 must have fallen in her esteem during those 
 weeks before. 
 
 Sometimes, to insure her patient's eating, 
 Ginevra would install herself cosily by the fire- 
 place and enter into conversation. Haydon had 
 a fund of questions ready, about the place, 
 the people, her own affairs anything to detain 
 her. They were poor, he knew that already,
 
 142 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 and that Ginevra spent her evenings sewing 
 by the dim lamp. 
 
 "Finally, there are others poorer than 
 we," Ginevra concluded, philosophically. She 
 summed up the character of the town which 
 so preyed upon Haydon, in two phrases. 
 
 "Are most of the sailors and fisher-folk 
 poor?" he asked. 
 
 " They are all poor, Signore." 
 
 " And are there many sailors and fisher-folk 
 in the town ? " 
 
 " They are all sailors and fisher-folk, 
 Signore." 
 
 " There is then much suffering, Ginevra ? " 
 
 "There is miseria nothing else!" said 
 Ginevra, with emphasis. 
 
 Haydon stroked the little Maddelena's head ; 
 there was always one or more of the children 
 present 
 
 " This bambino, is much like you, Ginevra," 
 he said, presently, after a silence in which his 
 mind had reverted from the town at large to the 
 three units before him. 
 
 " Yes ? " said Ginevra, questioningly. " But 
 this one" she drew Dino to her " is the 
 proper image of his father ; all the world says
 
 Couleur de Rose. 143 
 
 so." She looked at the child a long moment, 
 then caught him in her arms and kissed him 
 passionately. " It is himself ! " she murmured. 
 
 Haydon's hand fell from the little Maddelena's 
 head. 
 
 " She loves her husband," he thought. 
 
 He sat blankly staring at the fire long after 
 Ginevra and the children were gone, repeating 
 it to himself. 
 
 "She loves her husband she loves her 
 husband." 
 
 Why had he never thought of it before ? but 
 who -would have thought of it ? 
 
 He carried his astonishment through the next 
 day, and at night, when Ginevra was kneeling 
 before the fire, he put an artful question, care- 
 fully stirring his coffee the while : 
 
 "When do you expect your husband, 
 Ginevra?" 
 
 " Who knows ? " she answered. " Perhaps at 
 the capo danno, perhaps in February." 
 
 " I hope he is good to you," said Haydon, 
 abruptly. 
 
 Ginevra lifted her eyes with an air of 
 astonishment. 
 
 " He is an angel," she said, simply.
 
 144 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 " Tell me about him," said Haydon, stirring 
 with great care. 
 
 " There is nothing to tell ; but all the world 
 knows he is an angel. Five years we made 
 love, and we are married five years now ; truly 
 an angel he is." She gazed into the fire 
 dreamily and Haydon watched the light play 
 over her face and throat. 
 
 " She means it," he thought. 
 
 Suddenly Ginevra raised her eyes. " And 
 you, S ignore, you are not fidanzato f " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " There is nobody you love ? " 
 
 " No," said Haydon, with emphasis. 
 
 " Ah ! " Ginevra looked at him compassion- 
 ately. "Then you do not know you will 
 know some day, but you do not know now. 
 There is nothing like it." She rose from her 
 knees. 
 
 "Not even the bambini f" said Haydon, 
 jestingly, while with studied care he salted his 
 coffee. 
 
 " Ah ! the bambini are a part of it." Ginevra 
 smiled and picked up Dino. " Matrimony with- 
 out children," she added gravely, " is not good." 
 She shook her head as she went out, Dino
 
 Couleur de Rose. 145 
 
 in her arms crowing affirmation of this last 
 sentiment. 
 
 Haydon mechanically raised his cup to his 
 lips and took a long draught. 
 
 " She loves her husband," he repeated to him- 
 self, as he set the cup down, with the air of a 
 man who has discovered an incredible truth. 
 He looked at the cup some time. 
 
 " That is her story she loves her husband." 
 He lifted the cup a second time and finished 
 the coffee. 
 
 In the light of his discovery many things be- 
 came intelligible to Haydon. He knew now 
 what it meant when Ginevra came into his room 
 with a peculiar brightness of eye and cheek ; 
 it meant a letter from Paolino. He understood 
 now her disdainful scorn of outside diversions, 
 why she was content to sit and sew beside the 
 sleeping babies, and he perceived that it was her 
 romance which differentiated her from the other 
 women of the place. He had the utmost diffi- 
 culty in accepting the facts for truth, and the 
 truth at once irritated and fascinated him. 
 
 To live five in a room and be so happy ; to 
 live QT\ polenta andfarinata and be so happy ; 
 it was against all reason but it was true. 
 10
 
 146 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 " Do you never care to go out, to dance and 
 enjoy life as the others do, Ginevra ? " he asked. 
 
 Ginevra lifted her head disdainfully. 
 
 "For whom should I dress up and make a 
 bellafigura? " she said. " I have my husband 
 and the children ; it is a pity you do not love 
 somebody, Signore," she added with a touch of 
 impatience ; " you would know, then." 
 
 At present she made no secret of the fact that 
 she considered he did not know anything. 
 Haydon himself began to feel that she was 
 right. Certainly he knew nothing of the world 
 of love Ginevra moved in, where familiarity did 
 not breed contempt, and poverty was the nurs- 
 ing mother of love. 
 
 If Ginevra could have had her way the whole 
 world would have been married yes, even the 
 priests and nuns ; for, remarked this good 
 Catholic, naively, " After all, they are Christians 
 like ourselves, are n't they ? " There was in 
 Ginevra a quality of tranquil and unabashed 
 innocence, with its implied candor of speech, 
 before which Haydon whom the life of Paris 
 had not made to blush blushed often. He 
 did not blush for Ginevra, but for himself. 
 
 "Ah, well!" remarked Ginevra one day,
 
 Couleur de Rose. 147 
 
 winding up a dissertation upon the iniquitous 
 double marriage laws of Italy. " One must 
 think for others, all the world is not so happy 
 as we are." 
 
 " All the world is not, indeed ! " said Haydon, 
 a trifle bitterly. He turned to his portfolio and 
 began tossing over the sketches. 
 
 Presently he became conscious of Ginevra's 
 eyes ; she was standing near and there was an 
 unmistakable disdain in her expression as she 
 regarded the undraped figures. She said 
 nothing, however, and Haydon, recalling their 
 design, found himself confused under that can- 
 did glance. It seemed to him that all his pur- 
 pose must appear as nakedly to her, and for 
 the first time that purpose seemed to him dis- 
 honoring. 
 
 " Do they please you ? " he asked at last, to 
 break the embarrassing silence. 
 
 " No ; " replied Ginevra. 
 
 " Why not ? " persisted Haydon. 
 
 " The Signore has talent, but those do not 
 please me," was the only answer. Her lip 
 curled a little, and somehow, to Haydon, all 
 those obviously unclad women looked suddenly 
 silly. He was truly relieved when Ginevra left
 
 148 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 the room, and then he frowned and reminded 
 himself that to serve art was a glorious destiny 
 for any woman. 
 
 It might be so ; but something in him never- 
 theless kept on asserting that it would not be a 
 glorious destiny for Ginevra. 
 
 " This is perfectly preposterous ! " he said to 
 himself angrily, and then he flushed again as his 
 eye fell upon a vase of roses on the table. 
 
 Maddelena had come running in with them 
 that morning, and Ginevra, from the doorway, 
 had turned the gift to bitterness before he had 
 finished thanking the child. 
 
 " The Signore is very fond of roses ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Very ! " he had answered. 
 
 " Yes, all the time he was ill he talked about 
 nothing else but 'rose, rose;' we have been 
 waiting for these to bloom; they are the first 
 of the year." 
 
 He had flushed to the color of the flowers 
 then, as he turned to put them in water, and he 
 flushed again now in recalling it. 
 
 " I must be losing my mind," he thought 
 indignantly, later, as he walked through the 
 streets of the little town which now had become
 
 Couleur de Rose. 149 
 
 as eloquent as the pages of a book, every house 
 a paragraph of romance or tragedy. Here dwelt 
 pretty Bianca, the sewing girl. The furniture 
 stood on the sidewalk, and Haydon remembered 
 that the family were sailing for Australia to-mor- 
 row, lured by promises of free passage, to be 
 worked out at the other end. He foreboded 
 tragedy, but pretty Bianca had a lover who had 
 deserted her for another, and she was glad to go. 
 And yonder sat Luigi's old mother in the door- 
 way. Luigi had shot himself last week after 
 misappropriating a hundred francs, certainly 
 misappropriating it; for, instead of paying it in 
 to his own employer's bank account, he had 
 paid it out in groceries for his sister and her 
 eight children. Twenty dollars seemed to Hay- 
 don a low valuation of the boy's life, a dollar 
 for every year, but the boy had paid it with- 
 out a word. In this house Bandini's wife, the 
 mother of sixteen, lay dying, and dying so slowly 
 that it was worst of all ; it made dying so expen- 
 sive, a luxury people like Bandini cannot afford. 
 It was, however, the first extravagance of her 
 life. Also, Bandini's house was painted rose- 
 color, Haydon noticed. 
 
 The whole town was a walking tragedy.
 
 150 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 With a sense of revolt Haydon turned away. 
 In this hungry, starving, fever - smitten and 
 destitute world, was there no place for beauty ? 
 What else could keep life above the brute 
 level? 
 
 He arrived at the question and the shore 
 together. 
 
 Here at least was beauty. The storm waves 
 had piled the drift high along the shore, the 
 Mediterranean drift, that mystery of all seas ; 
 neither wood nor weed, but a tangle of woods 
 and weeds, and coral and pumice and shells. 
 
 Haydon had begun collecting shells in his first 
 leisure days, primarily in self-defence, but later 
 fascinated to find every tint of the changeful sea 
 crystallized in some wee convoluted sea-dwelling 
 or fairy form. He began now mechanically to 
 wander back and forth, picking up here a yellow, 
 there a violet, now a green, and now a rainbowed 
 shell, till his hands and pockets were filled. 
 Here was beauty the universe did not despise. 
 He stood up straight and looked about him. 
 
 The shore was covered with old men, boys, 
 women, and girls, but chiefly with women who 
 should have been girls ; each in a short skirt ; 
 each with wooden shoes or none ; each wearing
 
 Couleur de Rose. 151 
 
 a shawl, Madonnawise, over her head, and bear- 
 ing in her arms a child. With the disengaged 
 hand these young mothers piled, stick by stick, 
 the drift-wood in baskets or aprons, stooping 
 their stately forms to the task. They might 
 be sixteen years old these young Junos for 
 the most part. The wind blew their scant skirts 
 and shawls. 
 
 One of them came to Haydon. 
 
 " Ecco, Signore," she said, with a frank smile, 
 holding out to him a rosily transparent shell. 
 She had sympathetically noted his quest. 
 " Beautiful things, non % vero f " 
 
 Haydon pulled off his hat and stammered his 
 " Grazie." 
 
 Poor as she was, he did not insult her with 
 money; and she turned, smiling, to her drift- 
 wood gathering again. Haydon, the rosy shell 
 in his palm, looked after her, at the whole gigan- 
 tic picture of the sea and shore and sky and 
 moving figures of the drift-gatherers, and he 
 looked back at the little shell. If it was a 
 parable, it was a gigantic parable as well. 
 
 When the time is ripe a moment does the 
 work prepared by centuries. When Haydon 
 raised his eyes from the shell, for the first time
 
 152 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 in his life he looked through them, not with 
 them. 
 
 Great events are often quiet events. When a 
 star rises, when a flower opens, when a soul 
 wakens, it makes no noise. A great joy ; a great 
 terror, or a great disaster produce first of all a 
 great hush. And greatness is a relative term. 
 To a blind man, sight is a great event, though 
 all the world should combine to demonstrate its 
 unimportance to the world. 
 
 Haydon went home very quietly. He did not 
 call for his lamp as usual, and it would have 
 been quite dark when Ginevra came in with the 
 lamp in her hand, but for the unusually bright 
 fire on the hearth. Haydon had drawn aside the 
 curtain from the window, and, with his hands 
 against the pane and his forehead on his hands, 
 was looking into the gloom. 
 
 Yes, she might leave the lamp ; yes, he was 
 ready for his supper. 
 
 " I will go down, then, and cook the little 
 priest He will not take long to fry, and he is 
 fresh as fresh." 
 
 Haydon did not reply. In the first place he 
 was used to having priests on his table and in 
 his bed, the title answered for everything, from
 
 Couleur de Rose. 153 
 
 a fish to a scaldino; in the second place, he did 
 not hear the cannibalistic proposition. He was 
 watching Ginevra and thinking to himself : 
 
 " Had I been an artist instead of a finger- 
 juggler " 
 
 And as he stowed the empty portfolio behind 
 his trunk his lips quivered slightly.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 III. 
 
 " What in all the world do you most wish for, 
 Ginevra ? " asked Haydon. 
 
 She was dusting the room, and Haydon had 
 been watching her over his book ; he had more 
 often a book than a brush in his hand now ; 
 Ginevra had expressed several fears that he was 
 not quite well, he painted so little. 
 
 " A. gobbino" answered Ginevra, promptly. 
 
 " A gobbino ! " repeated Haydon. " What in 
 the world is a gobbino f " 
 
 Ginevra laughed, and gave him to understand 
 at length that a gobbino is a little gobbo and a 
 gobbo is a dwarf, but that the particular dwarf 
 which was her heart's desire was but an inch 
 high, of silver, and by some mysterious leger- 
 demain he might as well be represented by two 
 clasped silver hands or other device. 
 
 " And what in the world do you want of a 
 gobbino f" asked Haydon, with increase of 
 wonder.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 155 
 
 "It brings good fortune!" there was a 
 twinkle in her eye as she said it, with which 
 Haydon was acquainted. 
 
 " You don't believe that, Ginevra ? " 
 
 Ginevra's eyes twinkled the more, and she 
 shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Chi lo sa f " she said, merrily. " I should 
 like the gobbino, the same." 
 
 Haydon had never yet fathomed the depths 
 of Ginevra's common sense ; it was rare and 
 unusual as she herself was rare. Her store of 
 superstition and proverbial wisdom, in which 
 she was rich as every Italian is, invariably ran 
 over on either side into visible incredulity or 
 irresistible enjoyment of an absurdity. It was 
 his delight to make her talk, for the talking of 
 Ginevra was like a running stream of poetry; 
 she appeared to speak in blank verse by nature, 
 and did it with the air of its being as simple for 
 her as the common and unadorned speech of the 
 world to inferior mortals. Her spontaneity was 
 not the least of her attributes. This walking 
 book of poetry fascinated Haydon's ear, and he 
 encouraged conversation, for the sake of his 
 Italian. 
 
 There had been purpose in Haydon's question.
 
 156 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 Christmas was at hand, and on the day before it, 
 Haydon went to Pisa. He had long decided 
 what to give the children ; a dainty dress for the 
 little Margheritina (for even an Italian baby, he 
 was persuaded, would rather make a bellafigura 
 than have the choicest doll on earth) ; a toy cart 
 for Dino ; and for both children all the sweets 
 Ginevra would countenance. As for Maddelena, 
 her gift was not to come from Pisa; it had 
 been wrapped up in Haydon's trunk for a week 
 past. He sacrificially matched ribbons and 
 compared shades and accumulated packages all 
 day, but the errand upon which he spent him- 
 self was the gobbino. Pisa presented none wor- 
 thy of his fastidiousness. He walked over her 
 three times, and investigated every jeweller's 
 shop at least twice, in the effort to find a really 
 choice gobbino a gobbino of the gobbini such 
 a gobbo as might most infallibly incarnate good 
 fortune. He found one at last, and carried the 
 misshapen silver creature home in triumph. 
 He endeavored to console himself for the de- 
 formity of his gift, which cost him an artistic 
 pang or two, by the daintiness of the box in 
 which he encased it. He was as impatient as 
 a child for the morning to come, and summoned
 
 Couleur de Rose. 157 
 
 Ginevra and the children at the earliest permis- 
 sible hour. 
 
 It was pretty to see the dark eyes of Madde- 
 lena dilate with rapture above the rose-color 
 crepe and soft silken ribbons which Haydonlaid 
 in her arms ; the ecstatic music of her voice 
 quite overran Dino's vociferous tones. There 
 was an incipient Ginevra in Maddelena, and 
 Haydon accepted the bacino of the woman-child's 
 rosy lips with reverence. 
 
 " Oh, Signore ! " Ginevra found voice to say 
 at last, " it is much much too beautiful you 
 should not have given it." 
 
 " You will make her a festa dress, Ginevra," 
 said Haydon. " One may wear anything for 
 festas, and it is very suitable." 
 
 Haydon alone knew how suitable, this ex- 
 travagantly inappropriate gift. Ginevra shook 
 her head, but her eyes delighted openly in the 
 beautiful, soft fabric. It was charming to see 
 the change from that mother-sweetness to very 
 childlikeness in her face when Haydon awk- 
 wardly produced the gobbino and invoked a 
 buona for tuna for her. She was as rosy and 
 pleased as Maddelena. 
 
 "Oh, what a beautiful little gobbino, Sig-
 
 158 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 nore ! " she exclaimed. " Grasie ! Grazie / " 
 then her eyes suddenly brimmed over with 
 laughter. 
 
 " You must wear it, Ginevra," said Haydon, 
 " that it may bring all the good fortune possible, 
 you know you believe it." 
 
 Ginevra's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " Chi lo sa?" she said. 
 
 Haydon never forgot that Christmas Day. 
 He permitted himself to go in and out perpetu- 
 ally, and Ginevra prepared an unusual feast for 
 him, and grace as unusual she lingered 
 through it, gravely confiding to him how she 
 had it in her mind to make up that rose-color 
 gown. The little Maddelena was wild, 
 " absolutely fiazza " about it, and she had 
 promised the child to make it up for Easter, 
 but whether with a point behind or in front, 
 and whether with a little gamitura of ribbon or 
 only a girdle, she was seriously in doubt, she 
 wished it to be of a simplicity, but also of a 
 graciousness. She leaned thoughtfully upon 
 the chair opposite Haydon, and fastened her 
 large eyes upon distance ; Haydon's own drank in 
 the perfectly unconscious pose and countenance 
 thirstily. She seemed to him to incarnate every
 
 Couleur de Rose. 159 
 
 phase of womanhood. Maidenhood, wifehood, 
 and motherhood had left upon her their suc- 
 cessive crowns, and the power of none of them 
 had ever passed away ; she contained the sweet- 
 ness and charm of all three. In her was 
 summed for Haydon the awe, the wonder, 
 the majesty, and the simple delight of woman- 
 hood; his eyes and heart acknowledged her, 
 and appropriated her fearlessly. She was not, 
 indeed, fit to subserve a color scheme, but very 
 fit to serve Art. 
 
 " It would, perhaps, be better after all, with a 
 point both behind and in front ? " said Ginevra, 
 turning her eyes gravely upon him. Haydon 
 dropped his own. 
 
 " It would, perhaps, be better so," he assented 
 as gravely. 
 
 That afternoon Haydon drew, he drew 
 without fatigue or hesitancy, with a kind of 
 jubilation in every stroke ; the pencil sang in 
 his hand, and when he stopped, with the light, 
 he looked at his work a long moment. Then he 
 turned it to the wall and threw himself upon the 
 sofa. His pulse was going like a trip-hammer, 
 his lips burned ; but the conscious strength of 
 ten men was in him. Only an artist knows.
 
 160 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 He did not count the moments, the half-hours, 
 the hours. Some one pushed open the door. 
 
 " Signore ! " said the voice of Ginevra, in a 
 tone which made Haydon leap to his feet. He 
 was still in his dream. He went to her with 
 both hands out. 
 
 Ginevra did not see them. 
 
 " He is coming ! " she cried. " He will be 
 here this evening." She looked at him with 
 triumphant eyes. " Oh," she said, " Che bella 
 fortitna ! it is your gobbino I " 
 
 Haydon laughed. 
 
 The supper and the lamp came, and the 
 supper was duly eaten, Ginevra moving about 
 the while with a certain abstraction Haydon 
 made no effort to disturb. When she left the 
 room he took up a book, sat down near the 
 lamp and looked fixedly at the page, but 
 the clock ticked with such an annoying per- 
 sistency that reading was almost impossible. 
 He wondered he could ever have endured that 
 noise, that infernal noise ; every beat seemed 
 to fall upon one's brain. He rose and set the 
 door ajar, the racket downstairs was better 
 than this, and coming back, sat down again 
 and fixed his eyes again upon the same page.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 161 
 
 They remained fixed so for seventeen minutes 
 by the clock, then the reader's cheek paled. 
 There was a new sound below hurrying steps 
 the opening of a door a low, bird-like cry ; 
 Haydon started to his feet and shut the door 
 with a slam. He remained leaning against it 
 breathlessly, his cheek paling and flushing, his 
 heart pounding, as if he expected that noise to 
 force its way in ; then with set teeth he went 
 deliberately forward, picked up the book, and 
 sat grimly down again. This time the book 
 was upside down. 
 
 Half an hour later there came a knock at the 
 door. 
 
 " Come in ! " said Haydon, without raising 
 his eyes. 
 
 The door opened and Ginevra appeared. 
 She had a scaldino in her hands, and her eyes 
 were lustrous ; she kept them turned from the 
 Signore, and going to the fireplace began in- 
 dustriously to pile up the fallen wood, and brush 
 together the embers. Presently, the tongs in 
 her hands, and still kneeling, she flashed one 
 glance over her shoulder. Haydon was not 
 looking, but his eyes went over the top of the 
 book to meet it 
 
 ii
 
 162 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 Ginevra laughed, one low, sweet laugh, and 
 all the color went in a splendid wave over the 
 face of this ten years' sweetheart, this five 
 years' bride. 
 
 "At present," she said, "there is a man in 
 the house."
 
 Couleur de Rose. 163 
 
 IV. 
 
 MADDELENA was ill. Ginevra had worn that 
 transfigured face about the house but three 
 days when the child sickened, and to the feast 
 of the Nativity succeeded days of gloom. 
 
 Haydon's trunk was already packed for 
 departure, and so it stood ever since. Not 
 until now had he realized how much his heart- 
 strings were entwined about the child who was 
 her mother's miniature. For Ginevra, she was 
 as one distraught ; only one presence had any 
 power to soothe her, and Haydon, whose glance 
 had fallen with a certain disdain at first upon the 
 gentle face of Ginevra's husband, learned to 
 look to him as a tower of strength in the sad 
 days which followed. He was only a poor little 
 Tuscan cameriere, but he had known how to 
 make one woman perfectly happy. 
 
 For himself he walked the streets of the town 
 and argued with himself the impossibility that 
 Maddelena should die. Maddelena, the image
 
 164 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 of Ginevra, the first-born of Ginevra, the child 
 whose very essence must have the vitality of 
 love. There were hundreds, yes, thousands of 
 children in the place who could be spared; 
 there could not be in the universe a cruelty so 
 blind that it would pass over these and strike 
 at the first-born of Ginevra. Day after day 
 Haydon came out of the sick-room where 
 Maddelena, with scarlet lips, lay gasping for 
 breath, and persuaded himself thus; and day 
 after day he crept home to stand long on the 
 steps, summoning his courage before he could 
 open the door. 
 
 The child knew him always. When they 
 asked her what she wished : 
 
 " The rose ribbon of my Signore." 
 
 " Drink, the Signore sends it to you," they 
 said, and the parched lips, opening for nothing 
 else, would open at that charm to swallow the 
 medicine, and these things wrung Haydon's 
 heart. He would creep away, choking down 
 something, to persuade himself anew that there 
 was justice on earth and mercy in heaven. 
 
 There was neither. On the fifth evening 
 Ginevra fled into his room, her eyes enormous, 
 her lips pallid.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 165 
 
 " They will not let me go to her ! " she said. 
 " They will not let me go to her ! She is dying, 
 and they will not let me stay ! Dio Mio I Dio 
 Mio! Mercy!" There were sobs that made 
 Haydon's heart stand still. 
 
 The disease had taken a malignant form. 
 Death was slowly strangling life from the 
 bright little body downstairs, and the doctor, 
 merciless as Fate, had forbidden the mother to 
 come near, for the sake of Dino and the baby. 
 
 Haydon pressed his hands together. 
 
 " My God, it is too much! " 
 
 Suddenly Ginevra lifted her head and looked 
 at him. The sobs stopped, and Haydon's 
 heart. 
 
 " To-morrow," she said, slowly, " there will be 
 no more Maddelena in the world." 
 
 Haydon covered his face. "My God!" he 
 cried again. 
 
 Ginevra's eyes stared, and her lips murmured 
 continually. 
 
 " So beautiful my little daughter so 
 strong and they will not let me stay 
 Maddelena my figliuola" 
 
 Haydon knelt beside the chair ; he drew her 
 head upon his shoulder and stroked her hair.
 
 166 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 Ginevra neither resisted nor noticed, her eyes 
 still stared and her lips murmured unintelligibly. 
 
 Haydon continued, mutely, to stroke her 
 hair ; he was no more than a pillow, than that 
 stuffed chair back to her, and he asked only of 
 heaven and earth that it would comfort Ginevra, 
 somehow anyhow. 
 
 Presently the sobs ceased ; Ginevra rose, 
 he, too, rose humbly. She pressed her hands 
 together and drew her shawl close, shivering, as 
 if cold. 
 
 " I must not cry, for the baby," she said 
 exhaustedly ; " I must not " she turned away. 
 
 Haydon opened the door for her. On the 
 threshold she stopped ; her eyes dilated with a 
 suppressed agony. 
 
 " If she dies," she paused. " If she dies," 
 she said again, " I will make her the rose-color 
 dress. She was fiazza to wear it and she 
 shall wear it my figliuola my little daugh- 
 ter," she caught her breath sharply. Haydon 
 stood humbly watching the broken figure depart. 
 It was a little thing that his own heart seemed 
 broken, too. 
 
 He paced his room half the night, listening 
 for sounds from below, and in the dawn he
 
 Couleur de Rose. 167 
 
 threw himself dressed upon the bed. When he 
 awoke the sun was shining. He arose and 
 went hastily down stairs. The first person he 
 met was Paolino, his arms full of fire-wood. 
 
 Haydon gripped the banisters and stammered 
 out: 
 
 " The child ? " 
 
 " Dead ! " replied Paolino, with an indescrib- 
 able gesture. 
 
 Haydon bowed his head. Paolino turned 
 away quietly and piled the wood beside the fire- 
 place. His gentle face was paler than usual, 
 and there were hollows under his eyes, but his 
 manner was as quiet and contained as always. 
 Haydon looked at him, this man, younger than 
 himself, and separated from him by the immeas- 
 urable dignity of love and fatherhood and sor- 
 row for a first-born. 
 
 From a paste-board world, or more truly a 
 world of paint and canvas, Haydon had stepped 
 into a world where things were real ; where peo- 
 ple lived what he had dreamed, and dreamed 
 with a child's comprehension only; where the 
 least was his superior, by so much as one fact 
 of experience which shakes the soul is better 
 than a million fancies which skim through the
 
 1 68 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 brain. He [was a man in nothing but years, 
 whom this little cameriere would have been 
 entitled to look upon from his heights of human 
 experience with contempt. 
 
 He did not look upon Haydon with contempt, 
 however, but with a grave compassion. 
 
 " Will you see the child, S ignore ? " he asked. 
 
 Haydon followed mechanically into the room. 
 There was a strong odor of disinfectants, and 
 the little body was stretched rigidly on the bed. 
 With hands that trembled slightly, the young 
 father drew away the handkerchief from his 
 child's face. The purple shadow of death was 
 there. After a moment Paolino replaced the 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " God has taken her ! " he said. He turned 
 away. 
 
 He opened a door, and Haydon, obeying a 
 gesture, followed into the next room where Gi- 
 nevra sat in exile. There was a fire in the fire- 
 place, for the first time in years, and Ginevra 
 sat, or lay in a chair near it, her head thrown 
 back against the cushion, and a black handker- 
 chief about it, the Mater Dolorosa. 
 
 " Have you seen her ? " she asked, without 
 greeting, fixing her eyes upon Haydon.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 169 
 
 He bowed assent. 
 
 " They will carry her to the Campo Santo at 
 three," she murmured. 
 
 " To-day ! " Haydon started. 
 
 Ginevra trembled. 
 
 " It is necessary ! " said Paolino. He laid his 
 hand very quietly upon Ginevra's head and she 
 became still. It was the only shadow of a caress 
 Haydon ever beheld between them. " It is the 
 nature of the malady," the young Tuscan con- 
 tinued quietly ; " the body may not stay in the 
 house." 
 
 And at three, accordingly, Haydon alone of 
 the household followed Maddelena to the Campo 
 Santo. It was a pathetic little procession, by 
 reason of its poverty. Twelve little girls in 
 nondescript dresses carried candles and bore 
 the little bier; six priests preceded it. Haydon 
 had often observed that priests seemed to be the 
 one thing the town was rich in. The little bier 
 was covered with a pink table-cloth, and one 
 poor little borrowed wreath of artificial flowers. 
 Haydon followed to the church, where the tiny 
 coffin was sprinkled with holy water ; longer it 
 was not suffered to remain there ; thence he fol- 
 lowed to the Campo Santo and stood beside
 
 170 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 while Ginevra's child was laid in her last bed 
 and the dust heaped over her. 
 
 There was no more Maddelena in all the 
 world. 
 
 The bells were still ringing when he returned 
 to the house. 
 
 In the room to the right as he entered he 
 could see Ginevra, her face in her hands, and 
 Paolino walking gently up and down with the 
 baby in his arms. 
 
 He went up to his own room and, shutting 
 the door behind him, looked about with the 
 gaze of one who has been long away. 
 
 That evening Ginevra came to Haydon's 
 room ; there was a rose-color heap in her arms, 
 at which Haydon looked with amazement. Gin- 
 evra's face was white ; her eyes, in amends, 
 were darker than ever in their violet circles. 
 She laid the rose-colored heap on the table. 
 
 "They would not let her wear it," she said, 
 " for reason of the malady. They wrapped her 
 in a sheet with something my Maddelena " 
 She paused a moment. Otherwise " she 
 stopped again. 
 
 Haydon did not speak.
 
 Couleur de Rose. 171 
 
 Presently Ginevra held up the rose-color 
 gown ; it was trimmed with cotton lace, shirred 
 and tortured into a little robe, and in the other 
 hand she held a bonnet, also of rose color. 
 
 " She would have been so beautiful, and she 
 was pazza to wear it " There was mingled 
 admiration and anguish in her eyes and voice. 
 
 Hay don looked at the ghastly little bonnet 
 and thought of the rigid child's face beneath the 
 sod, and he shuddered. 
 
 Suddenly Ginevra put them down ; her face 
 quivered. 
 
 " I cannot bear to see them ! " 
 
 "Give them to me, Ginevra." 
 
 There was silence in the room for a moment, 
 then Ginevra laid the gown and bonnet in 
 Haydon's arms. 
 
 " Take them," she said. " She loved you." 
 
 Haydon turned, lifted out the tray of his 
 trunk, and with very great care laid the small 
 gown and bonnet in, so small they looked 
 there ! 
 
 Ginevra standing by watched him with min- 
 gled wonder and envy. 
 
 " You can weep," she said, " but I cannot 
 weep any more. There is the baby."
 
 172 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 " Yes," said Haydon. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Ginevra, suddenly, " we 
 were too happy ! When Paolino dressed in the 
 morning he sang, and when I went to make the 
 coffee I sang. We had everything in the world, 
 and it was too much like heaven we were 
 too happy there must be some cross." 
 
 Haydon was still kneeling ; he gazed up at 
 her without a word. 
 
 And so kneeling he saw the shadow of some- 
 thing too deep for a smile, but partaking of its 
 gladness, sweep into Ginevra's face. She looked 
 down at Haydon. 
 
 "Imagine, he has done everything to-day! 
 washed the dishes, made the broth, every- 
 thing; he would let me do nothing." There 
 was a wondering ecstasy in her tone. " An 
 angel ! " she said, turning away. " Proprio un 
 angelo my husband ! " The trait of wonder- 
 ing tenderness was still upon her face as she left 
 the room, a Mater Dolorosa with a look no 
 Mater Dolorosa ever wore. 
 
 Haydon knelt still before the trunk. So 
 strangely it looked, that little garment of a child 
 among his man's possessions. It did not speak 
 only of the dead baby, but of a thousand possi-
 
 Couleur de Rose. 173 
 
 bilities of an infinitely human tenderness. In 
 every man there is latent the instinct for those 
 ties which relate him to humanity, capable of 
 being awakened by a touch. And to a strong 
 man there must be always something touching 
 in the first association of a being feebler and 
 frailer, with himself, in that unconscious appeal 
 which the most trifling possessions of a beloved 
 woman or child seem to wear. Just as every 
 woman who has loved hides in her heart some 
 little, dumb, rapturous memory of the first time 
 a man's hat or coat hung intimately beside her 
 own, or his gloves lay upon her dressing table. 
 The prose of life is no such prose, after all; 
 every pair of lovers know it. 
 
 Some hint of all that may be, all without 
 which art is barren and life is not life, came to 
 Haydon with that tiny gown and bonnet. He 
 did not formulate the experience or analyze it, 
 but it remained with him. 
 
 When his thoughts came back to the child 
 who was dead, and to Ginevra, to the pitiful 
 shirred robe and betrimmed bonnet meant to 
 adorn death, his eyes brightened with the tender- 
 est smile they had ever worn. It was so human 
 it was so especially Italian that wish to
 
 174 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 make a bellafigura even in the grave. Ginevra 
 herself could not escape it, and it had certainly 
 added a little sting to a great agony that Mad- 
 delena might not have had the rose color gown 
 and candles. He thought of the pink table- 
 cloth and borrowed wreath. Poor Ginevra! 
 It could only have been a special tenderness 
 which sent the next inspiration to Haydon ; but 
 he himself marvelled at his own stupidity in not 
 earlier divining what must be the secret longing 
 of Ginevra's heart. A funeral wreath, yes, of 
 course. Never in the world would they be able 
 to afford one ; the little grave and the doctor's 
 bill meant strict denial for a long time to come, 
 in simple necessaries, and Haydon had been 
 long enough in Italy to know how slightly es- 
 teemed are all natural flowers in comparison 
 with the wire and paper and metal substitutes 
 which make gay the Campa Santos on every 
 festa. Ginevra should have the finest Pisa 
 could furnish forth, and in time for her darling's 
 first Sunday in the grave. 
 
 The next morning he went to Pisa, on what 
 he felt to be the most appropriate errand that 
 had ever taken him there. He hated the 
 "widowed city;" it affected him like a living
 
 Couleur de Rose. 175 
 
 tomb of which the loathsome frescos of the 
 Campo Santo were the appropriate decorations. 
 Before, he had come to buy rose-ribbons and 
 silver-charms ; more than once he had wondered 
 fantastically whether the purchase of \ho.gobbino 
 there had not endued it with the fatality of the 
 wretched city and converted it from a beneficent 
 into an evil talisman. But now, standing in a 
 dark warehouse in a gloomy back-street, while 
 two, four, half a dozen men pulled out box after 
 box of funeral emblems and hung them about 
 him, Haydon had a sense of the utter fitness of 
 the place to the occasion. 
 
 It was a grotesque, unless it was a pathetic 
 scene which Haydon made, as surrounded by 
 the emblems of pure ugliness this devotee of 
 pure beauty earnestly bent himself to seeing with 
 the eyes of Ginevra which of all these horrors 
 was most truly beautiful. He interested himself 
 in the designs, studied the coloring, contem- 
 plated with serious feeling the ornate embel- 
 lishments. He had a strong instinct that she 
 would think the ivy (it must be ivy) too sombre, 
 and the potato-plant (it could be nothing else) 
 appeared too gay. The shopman uncovered 
 the eighteenth box.
 
 176 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 " I will take that ! " said Haydon quickly, and 
 he felt a pang at the heart. 
 
 It was a garland of pale pink roses set in 
 silver leaves, with a tiny white pea running 
 over both ; the whole blushed delicately rosy, 
 a thing to delight Ginevra's heart. Haydon 
 scarcely heard the shopman who was pointing 
 out the immense advantage this wreath possessed 
 over all other wreaths ; how, in fact, it might be 
 truly called a double wreath, and if one 
 regarded it, behold, there was a space especially 
 designed to hold the photograph of the dead one. 
 The stupefaction of the man's face was curiously 
 blended with profound sympathy, as Haydon 
 paid his price and walked off, merely requesting 
 that the wreath be forwarded without delay. 
 He judged Haydon to be a sorely smitten man, 
 since he had not haggled for even one franc of 
 the ten he the shopman was prepared to 
 take off. 
 
 The wreath arrived nearly as soon as Haydon 
 himself. Bandoni, the ever-faithful, brought it 
 up through the cold rain in a box half as large 
 as himself, and Haydon hastily thrust a two-franc 
 bit into his hand, to be rid of him. To his 
 horror the great, burly creature burst into tears.
 
 Couteur de Rose. 177 
 
 Haydon looked in amazement from him to 
 Ginevra. Could even the Italian heart lavish 
 such sympathy upon the funeral wreath of 
 another ? 
 
 " Ah ! " said Bandoni, between his strong sobs, 
 " pardon, these two francs are two angels to 
 me to-day." 
 
 Ginevra apparently understood; she wiped 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Poverino .' " she said. " It is that his wife 
 is really dying to-day and with eight bambini 
 and nothing in the house one imagines ! " 
 
 Haydon's soul revolted. 
 
 " Ginevra," he cried, "is there nothing 
 nothing but misery in this place ? " 
 
 Ginevra looked at him, and at the wreath, and 
 at him. 
 
 " Not much ! " she answered a little bitterly, 
 then her face changed. " Perd" she said, " there 
 is something," 
 
 Her own tears fell softly on the wreath, a 
 wreath beautiful beyond dream. Never had she 
 seen one so delicately fine, and her eyes divined 
 at once that place for the portrait. It was 
 impossible not to see that there was in her heart 
 a sad pleasure at the thought of the "bella 
 
 12
 
 iy8 Couleur de Rose. 
 
 figura " her darling would make in the Campo 
 Santo. 
 
 " And the best is," she said, clasping her 
 hands in her old, impetuous way, " Maddelena 
 will be so pleased. She will see we do not for- 
 get her, my figliuola / " " My little daugh- 
 ter ! " it was a whole poem of love and longing. 
 
 " There are still the two, Ginevra," said 
 Haydon. " And God will send you others." 
 
 " As many as He will," answered Ginevra, 
 quickly. " We thought the three enough, 
 but now as many as He will. One can 
 always live on polenta Paolino says it, too 
 there can never be too many. And, forme if 
 there were twelve they would all be his" 
 She bent to replace a silver leaf. 
 
 " I am going home to-morrow, Ginevra," said 
 Haydon, after a moment. 
 
 " Going ! " repeated Ginevra ; a little shadow 
 of regret crossed her face. "It is another 
 sorrow for us ; the bambino, loved you ; but, it 
 is true you cannot stay always." 
 
 " You will not forget me wholly, Ginevra ? " 
 
 " We shall never forget you," replied Ginevra, 
 quietly. She touched the wreath again. " You 
 are leaving us this for a ricordo, Signore."
 
 Couleur de Rose. 179 
 
 That night Haydon packed his things, for the 
 train was to leave early in the morning. He 
 was up before the dawn, and stole softly from 
 the house, having promised himself to behold 
 the last sunrise from the shore. 
 
 It rose as if conscious of the watcher. Hay- 
 don, with the early breeze stirring his uncovered 
 hair, stood watching the daily miracle. Peak 
 after peak flushed slowly, the shore and the 
 water put on light as a garment, the earth glowed, 
 and the heavens bloomed before the watching 
 eyes like a gigantic flower. There flashed 
 through Haydon's mind the phrase : 
 
 " God made himself an awful rose of dawn." 
 
 When he went back to the house he opened 
 the door softly, not to awaken any ; but as he 
 stepped in noiselessly and shut the morning out 
 behind him, a more blinding vision flashed to 
 meet him from the dimness. 
 
 The door to the left was ajar, and through it 
 he beheld he could not choose but behold 
 Ginevra. She was sitting up, with the long, 
 dark masses of her hair about her shoulders, 
 and her baby at her breast. But it was the 
 light of her face alone which struck Haydon's
 
 i8o Couleur de Rose. 
 
 consciousness ; the rest came back to him after- 
 ward as remembered details. She was not look- 
 ing at the baby; her head was raised, and she 
 looked beyond with such a rapture of love and 
 wonder, as if she beheld a miracle. 
 
 At the same moment Haydon heard a foot- 
 fall entering the room ; he collected himself with 
 an effort and went upstairs. 
 
 He was still bending above the shawl-strap 
 when Ginevra came in with his coffee, and an 
 apology, considerably later. 
 
 " Imagine, Signore," she said, as she put the 
 tray on the table, "why I am so late?" She 
 hesitated, evidently between a sweet shame and 
 the irresistible need of telling. She looked at 
 him, blushed a little, and her eyes positively 
 laughed for the first time since the child's death. 
 Haydon noted the promise of returning joy. 
 
 " It is," she said at last, "that I was not very 
 well, and my husband would have me stay in 
 bed while he brought me coffee. Imagine, 
 coffee in bed ! as if one were a Signora ! " The 
 irresistible triumph of happiness, a happiness 
 almost incredulous of itself, was in her accent. 
 Her eyes challenged him to acknowledge this 
 marvel beyond experience or belief, a husband
 
 Couleur de Rose. 181 
 
 who brought one coffee in bed ! a husband 
 who loved one like that ! 
 
 The last moment found Haydon its equal. 
 
 " There is no one like him, Ginevra," he said. 
 " No one. I am thankful you are his." 
 
 A voice called from below that the carriage 
 waited. 
 
 " Finish your coffee, Signore ; there is time," 
 said Ginevra. " I will send the man up for your 
 baggage." She turned to the door. On the 
 threshold she paused and turned to look over 
 her shoulder at Haydon once more. The un- 
 touched cup stood before him ; his eyes were 
 fastened upon her. 
 
 " Imagine only," she murmured, " one's coffee 
 in bed ! as if one were a Signora ! "
 
 A STRANGE DINNER-PARTY.
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 THE HON. SIR HARRY RANDOLPH TO THE 
 EARL AND COUNTESS OF RANDOLPH. 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 176-. 
 
 My Dear Father and Mother, I have 
 taken passage on the good ship Fortunatus, 
 which sails for England next week. I write 
 this, taking advantage of the cutter Stephen /?., 
 which His Excellency Governor Bernard hath 
 just apprised me will leave these parts for 
 Liverpool at full tide. 
 
 I am the happiest man alive. I bring you 
 home the fairest bride that ever trod the Ran- 
 dolph halls, the sweetest daughter in England. 
 
 I beseech you, my honored parents, to sus- 
 pend alike your consternation and anger while I 
 relate to you the whole tale. 'T will not take 
 long, and I know you not if you do not then 
 declare that I have acted as becomes a son of 
 our house and an English gentleman.
 
 1 86 A Strange Dinner- Party. 
 
 I have already written you touching the out- 
 come of the business with which it hath 
 pleased our Gracious Master the King to entrust 
 me, and I will not now take space to dwell upon 
 these matters, save to say that I have, I believe, 
 met with as much success as could be looked 
 for, when one taketh into account the troublous 
 nature of the times and the fixed and unbending 
 character of these people with whom I have to 
 deal. Of a truth, they are as proud and stiff- 
 necked a set as I have yet in all my roving 
 about the world encountered. 
 
 You are already conversant with the manner 
 of my stay in Boston, and that I was well 
 received and most honorably entertained, each 
 man vying with his neighbor in who should 
 show me the greatest courtesy. For my part, 
 I trust I have not borne myself altogether ill, but 
 as became a gentleman of the Court. 
 
 At the balls and routs I have had the good 
 fortune to meet the wives and daughters of the 
 most respected gentlemen, many of whom, I 
 protest, would do honor to the highest court- 
 circles, for wit, beauty, and skill in all feminine 
 arts. By far the fairest of them all is Mistress 
 Dorothy Wentworth. There is not a gallant in
 
 A Strange Dinner- Party. 187 
 
 Boston who hath not wasted his sighs and 
 prayers at her feet and had for all answer to his 
 importunities her sweet disdain, until but I 
 anticipate. 
 
 Her father is that upright and austere John 
 Wentworth of whom England hath heard, the 
 leader in all the stirring policy of the colony : a 
 man of great natural parts, of profound states- 
 manship, of a bearing so noble and lofty that 
 it would not misbecome a Minister of State. 
 Much dealing have I had with this gentleman in 
 the courts of publick affairs. It were impossible 
 not to look upon him with esteem. Mistress 
 Dorothy is his only daughter, and in that her 
 mother died in giving her life, the tie between 
 father and child hath been peculiarly tender. 
 From the first she received my gallantries gra- 
 ciously, though she hideth under all her gayety 
 a quiet dignity which remindeth one oddly of 
 her grave father. Still she was all condescen- 
 sion, wit, and beauty, with an unaffected charm 
 and naturalness I have never seen equalled. I 
 forget that you will see for yourself ere long and 
 laugh at my poor efforts to describe what no 
 man could. 
 
 I have no space to dwell upon the days and
 
 1 88 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 weeks, the balls and routs, the walks and drives, 
 in which Mistress Dorothy and I were thrown 
 together. It sufficeth that I loved her ere I 
 knew it, and it seemed to me that she did look 
 upon me with favor. 'Twas not long ere I was 
 her acknowledged cavalier in all the routs and 
 merry-makings, and so one day I woke to find 
 that all my heart was gone from me to her ! 
 The knowledge which at first filled me with a 
 great joy soon grew to terror and remorse, for 
 I bethought me who and what I was ; how that 
 I was the last of a great line in whom were 
 many noble houses centred, the heir of all the 
 lands and titles which have been the pride of 
 our family for centuries, bound by every obliga- 
 tion alike of honor and of duty to wed within 
 mine own class and estate, and so preserve the 
 purity of descent unbroken. I thought of you, 
 my dear father and mother, of how such a 
 mesalliance would go near to break your hearts 
 and bow your gray hairs with sorrow ; and I 
 thought of my young sisters and brothers. And 
 then I thought of Dorothy ! And when her 
 sweet face in all its loveliness and purity and 
 native pride (the sweetest ever earth saw) came 
 before me, and I knew how 't was but the faint
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 189 
 
 shadow of her inner purity and loveliness, my 
 heart seemed like to break that she could never 
 be my wife. For my wife she never should be 
 I swore it then whatever it might cost me, 
 for the faith in which I was bred was strong 
 within me, that a great heritage like mine was 
 but a trust which a gentleman must hand down 
 with undimmed lustre to his heirs after him. 
 This must a gentleman and a man of honor do ; 
 how much more I, who held in keeping the 
 honor of so many noble lines. I swore it to my- 
 self, and, for I feared, even while I madly hoped 
 it, that Dorothy loved me, I resolved also to 
 keep away from her, but by degrees, so that she 
 might not guess it. And since I would not 
 awaken any suspicion, and had been that night 
 bidden to sup at Wentworth's (and as, moreover, 
 my eyes were aching for a sight of hers), I per- 
 suaded myself that courtesy and prudence alike 
 counselled my going for this one time, which I 
 did, and was so winningly received by Mistress 
 Dorothy that I came home in worse case than 
 ever. 
 
 Like reasons found I for accepting an invita- 
 tion to dine with Master Quincy, where I sat 
 next to Dorothy (not Mistress Dorothy Quincy,
 
 190 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 but my Dorothy, in a pale blue gown which set 
 off her wild-rose face) ; and so it went. There 
 was ever a reason why I must needs go, and 
 that place at which I was to draw the line 
 remained ever in the future. And so I saw 
 more and more of the maiden and more and 
 more madly loved her from day to day. 
 
 All might still have been well had I not, with 
 a folly for which there is no account but a lover's 
 insanity, accepted the invitation of His Excel- 
 lency's friend, Master Bradford, to pass some 
 days with him at his house in the town of Bristol, 
 in the colony of Rhode Island, some miles from 
 Boston. You must know that this is a small 
 town, for the possession of which there hath 
 been much controversy between the two colonies 
 till 't was settled by his Majesty's Commissioners 
 in favor of Rhode Island. Yet many of the fine 
 gentlemen of Boston retain their stately residen- 
 ces and great farms there ; and of this number 
 are Wentworth and Bradford. Indeed, 'twas 
 there Dorothy was born, and she hath loved the 
 spot, I do believe, as well as we in England our 
 ancestral houses. 
 
 Master Bradford having done me the honor 
 to invite me, I made haste to accept. Dorothy
 
 % A Strange Dinner- Party. 191 
 
 and her father had already gone down to Bristol, 
 Wentworth being called there on pressing busi- 
 ness, and I knew none could keep him long from 
 Boston. We made the journey by stage, and 
 what with the cold, the badness of the roads, 
 and the lateness of the season, 't was no holiday 
 trip, I promise you, and we were all content to 
 reach Bradford's house, where warm rooms and 
 dinner and good cheer awaited us. 
 
 It wanted a week to Christmas, and Bradford 
 having much to attend to in the town, where he 
 hath great influence and dignity, it fell naturally 
 that I mounted my horse daily and rode over to 
 Wentworth's mansion (the finest in all the town) , 
 where a pair of lovely eyes grew ever brighter 
 at my arrival and a little hand gave itself more 
 and more willingly into mine own. It chanced 
 that Wentworth as well as Bradford was much 
 occupied, so Dorothy and I spent the greater 
 part of this week together, and what qualms and 
 pricks of conscience I had were all too readily 
 dissipated in the sweetness of her society ; the 
 more readily as I had resolved that upon my 
 return to town I would make haste to leave these 
 parts forever. You will blush for my conduct 
 and think I must have been mad indeed ; but as
 
 192 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 I live I think myself to have been swayed by a 
 wiser power than my own, and that my folly was 
 but obedience to the higher reason within me 
 which would not hearken to that senseless thing 
 I had set up and called my duty. 
 
 However that may be, I went, and at last 
 't was Christmas Eve. I was spending it with 
 Dorothy, for Bradford had set me down there 
 on his way to some publick meeting, and had 
 carried Wentworth with him. You must know 
 that there is a strange freedom in these New 
 England households, and the young men and 
 maidens are left much to one another's society; 
 yet have I never heard that such freedom is 
 abused, rather it doth tend to a certain respectful 
 equality between the two. 
 
 I was bidden to a great dinner on the morrow 
 at Wentworth's, in my honor. Dorothy had 
 named over to me all the great personages who 
 were to be of the company, with much merry 
 gossip thereon, and I had sung her the latest 
 English ballad to her accompaniment on the 
 spinnet ; and so at length we drew near the fire, 
 and my heart was hotter than it ! Never had 
 she been so gracious and tender, so that I could 
 read her whole heart in her eyes.
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 193 
 
 As we stood together, the tall clock in the hall 
 struck ten. "It groweth late," said Dorothy. 
 " I marvel what keepeth my father and Mr. 
 Bradford so long." 
 
 " Hath the evening been so tedious," I an- 
 swered with a glance of playful reproach, " that 
 you call it late ? Also, you forget 't is Christ- 
 mas Eve." 
 
 " Christmas Eve ! " Dorothy repeated. " We 
 observe it not in New England. They say 'tis 
 a popish practice ; yet I confess I would fain 
 see it once. Tell me, Sir Harry, if you were 
 now in England, how would you pass this 
 evening ? " 
 
 I sent my fancy back to the English Christ- 
 mases at Randolph, and told her at length of 
 the gathering there would be, how the old 
 halls would be decked in holly, and there would 
 be feasting and merry-making of all kinds. 
 Nay, while I talked, methought I was there with 
 you. 
 
 " 'T is fine," said Dorothy, with a sigh, when 
 I had done. " I would like well to see it, though 
 it be but popery. This is but a dull Christmas 
 Eve for you, Sir Harry," she added, with a 
 demure glance at me above her fan. 
 13
 
 194 A Strange Dinner- Party. 
 
 " T is the happiest I ever spent ! " cried I so 
 vehemently that she was all confused, and the 
 fan slipped from her fingers. The sight of her 
 confusion and blushes undid me utterly. She 
 stooped to pick up her fan, but I was before her, 
 and caught both it and her hand together, and 
 kissed her hand passionately. Then looking up 
 and seeing in her eyes no anger, but a sweet 
 consenting, all the madness of the past month 
 mounted straight to my brain, and before I knew 
 it I had caught her in my arms and kissed her 
 lips again and yet again. 
 
 I came to my senses, and releasing her, drew 
 back and knew myself for the basest wretch on 
 earth. She was all rosy and confused. 
 
 " Sir Harry," saith she, " Sir Harry " and 
 stood blushing. 
 
 Ah, how I cursed my lack of manhood ! for 
 even then the habit of my life was strong in 
 me, so that I saw but the one step to be taken. 
 I took her two hands in mine with a profound 
 respect, but dared not raise my shamed eyes to 
 her face. 
 
 " Mistress Dorothy," said I, " I have gone 
 mad utterly. Forgive me ! I pray you, forgive 
 me!"
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 195 
 
 "What mean you, Sir Harry?" she faltered 
 so sweetly that I looked up perforce, and saw 
 that in her face which made me feel a thousand 
 times the worse. I dropped my eyes again. " I 
 mean that I love you, Dorothy, with all my 
 heart," I said fervently; "and that I pray you 
 to pardon me, I pray you, Dorothy ! " 
 
 Now I truly thought I had told it all, instead 
 of which a wonderful light dawned suddenly in 
 the maiden's face. " Sir Harry," saith she, so 
 low and falteringly that I could scarce hear it, 
 " there doth need no pardon where is no 
 offence." 
 
 " Dorothy, Dorothy ! " cried I, now grown 
 fairly desperate. " Thou dost not understand. 
 I love thee love thee, shall ever love thee ; 
 but I am bound hand and foot. I cannot, I can- 
 not, thou dost not understand!" Thank 
 Heaven ! for very shame my tongue failed me ; 
 and I could say no more, But 'twas enough. 
 I saw Dorothy's face grow suddenly white. 
 
 " What is it ? " saith she, with a thrill of 
 awakening fear and pride. " What is it I do 
 not understand, Sir Harry?" She would have 
 drawn away her hand, but I held it fast, and 
 kissed it passionately ; and between my kisses I
 
 196 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 moaned rather than said, " Dorothy, my love, 
 my darling, why am I not free to wed as other 
 men? Must I give thee up? Must an earldom 
 and a title come between thee and me ? " 
 
 Her small hands were torn rather than drawn 
 away from mine. 
 
 "Yes, Sir Harry Randolph, it must!" said 
 she, like ice, and I saw her face with such a look 
 as it had turned to marble ; and then I knew 
 that she had comprehended the slight I had 
 put upon her, and that her pride had received 
 a mortal wound. At which, losing sight of 
 what sense remained to me, I cast myself madly 
 upon my knees before her. 
 
 " Dorothy ! " I cried, " Dorothy ! Look not, 
 so ! Thou does not know ! I love thee with 
 my whole heart. I shall love thee till I die. 
 'T is the bitterness of death that I cannot wed 
 thee! Naught else should come between us; 
 but 't is my honor is engaged, the honor of a 
 great name I hold in trust." 
 
 Worse I could not have said. 
 
 " Sir Harry," saith she, with blazing eyes, 
 "are you mad indeed? Or perchance this is 
 the Christmas mumming you were telling me 
 of? I would fain remind you that I am no
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 197 
 
 English lady to understand it, but plain Puritan 
 Dorothy Wentworth. Up, sir, up, for shame ! 
 Father 1" 
 
 She stopped short, all quivering with splendid 
 indignation. 
 
 " Master Bradford awaiteth you, Sir Harry 
 Randolph," said Wentworth, coming quietly 
 forward, speaking in his accustomed measured 
 tones. " And as 't is late, he will not enter, but 
 sendeth thee good-night, Dorothy, by me." 
 
 He spoke so calmly that I could not for the 
 life of me judge whether he had overheard 
 aught, and if it were by chance or design that he 
 had placed himself by Dorothy, who stood now 
 white and silent at all her slender height. 
 
 There was nothing but to make my adieus as 
 I best could, which I did without knowing how, 
 and was bowing myself stumblingly out of the 
 door when Wentworth's stately tones reached 
 me: 
 
 " Forget not, I pray you, sir, that you are to 
 dine with us to-morrow. Dorothy, hast thou 
 reminded Sir Harry ? Join with me in assuring 
 his lordship that we are sensible of the honor 
 he will do us." And now I knew Wentworth 
 had heard all.
 
 198 A Strange Dinner- Party. 
 
 " Right willingly, father," answered Dorothy, 
 proudly, how like the two were! "I pray 
 you, forget it not, my lord ! " 
 
 What I muttered I know not, and forth I 
 stumbled into the night. Nay, I will not dwell 
 upon that time. Heaven save I should e'er 
 pass such another ! Never was man so miser- 
 ably torn between loyalty to his love and loyalty 
 to the house from which he sprung, and the 
 illustrious name he bore and the parents who 
 bore him. For the result, the tale shall 
 tell it. 
 
 It was a bitter Christmas Day, though with- 
 out snow ; and most strange it seemed to be 
 wakened by no bells ringing to service, no 
 sounds of Christmas festivity and observance, 
 all such being eschewed by the Puritans as 
 " relics of popery," which they abhor. 
 
 It was noon when we reached Master Went- 
 worth's house, Master Bradford, his good lady, 
 and I being driven thither in his coach drawn 
 by four fine horses. Wentworth's slaves in 
 livery stood waiting for us at the entrance gates, 
 which they threw open at our approach. My 
 heart beat like to burst through my waistcoat as 
 we drew up at the steps of the mansion, at the
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 199 
 
 head of which stood Wentworth and Mistress 
 Dorothy surrounded by the guests of impor- 
 tance and the entire household assembled in 
 my honor. Among them was His Excellency 
 Governor Hopkins of Rhode Island. Me- 
 thought Wentworth never looked more impos- 
 ing. Beside him stood my sweetheart, paler 
 than her wont, but every whit as stately in her 
 maiden grace, attired in a robe of pale blue 
 brocade, a sight to set my poor heart at a 
 madder dance than ever ! 
 
 All this I saw as we drew up to the door. 
 The wheels had scarce stopped grating on the 
 gravel and the slaves jumped from their seats 
 ere Wentworth himself advanced and threw open 
 the carriage door. 
 
 " Madam ! ' said he with a profound and 
 stately obeisance, " Gentlemen ! you are right 
 welcome to my poor house ! Do me the honor 
 to enter ! " 
 
 "Sir," replied Bradford, descending, "the 
 honor is ours ! " 
 
 Wentworth then gave his arm to the Madam 
 Bradford, and we followed up the steps. 
 
 " Mistress Dorothy, your humble servant ! " 
 said Bradford, saluting her. I bowed in silence
 
 2OO A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 above the ice-cold little finger-tips which just 
 touched my hand. For my life I had not the 
 heart to raise my eyes to the proud-set face. 
 The one glimpse from the carriage had sufficed 
 to steal all my courage from me. 
 
 "Enter first, Sir Harry!" said Bradford's 
 jovial voice. " Nay, I protest ! "as I would 
 have had him pass before. " As the represent- 
 ative of His Majesty, meet it is you should take 
 precedence of his humble servant." And not to 
 make further words I followed our host between 
 the rows of liveried servants into the great 
 drawing-room, where a mighty fire blazed upon 
 the hearth. 
 
 Bradford rubbed his hands. " Ha ! " said 
 he, " 't is a welcome sight on such a day, a good 
 New England fire ! You will see naught finer, 
 Sir Harry, in Old England." 
 
 " You forget, sir," I rejoined, trying to answer 
 with suitable spirit and lightness, though in 
 truth I scarce knew what I was saying while 
 yonder stood my sweetheart as cold and stately 
 as an ice-maiden, "you forget there will be 
 many such a blazing hearth this day throughout 
 England, and ever while there are hearts to love 
 and hands to light the yule-log ! "
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 201 
 
 Now had I indeed done it! Bradford and 
 Master Wentworth each drew himself up, and 
 there was a look of disapproval on every 
 face. 
 
 "In truth," said Bradford, coldly, "you re- 
 mind us in season of what we had fain forgotten, 
 Sir Harry, that England still countenanceth the 
 mumming and trickery of popish observance." 
 
 " Well were it for her," added Wentworth, 
 severely, " and better fitting a land of Christian 
 men and women, that every hearth in England 
 should show chill and fireless to-day than be 
 lighted up for such ungodly revels ! " 
 
 Now indeed I knew not which way it became 
 me to look, when a new bustle of arrivals 
 diverted all eyes to the door and away from my 
 hapless self. I was still thanking Providence 
 for that good fortune, as I stood warming me 
 at the grateful blaze, wondering in my mind to 
 whom I should most safely address myself, since 
 I had no wit to guard my tongue that day. 
 
 " You found your drive but a cold and cheer- 
 less one, I fear me, sir," said a sudden clear, 
 low voice at my elbow, so that I started violently 
 and was like to have overset the small table 
 which stood near.
 
 2O2 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 " I crave a thousand pardons, Mistress 
 Dorothy, for my awkwardness," I said, while 
 all my heart rose up with hope and gratitude, 
 construing her speech as a sign of forgiveness. 
 " I have been chilled, 't is true, but 't is gone." 
 What more I would have said died away un- 
 spoken, for she met the speaking glance I gave 
 her all steadily, nor did a line of her face change. 
 
 " In truth," she answered, in her sweet, cold 
 tones, " I am glad of it. 'T is a warming blaze. 
 Our New England forests yield us noble fire- 
 wood. I doubt if your own broad acres of 
 Randolph, my lord, could furnish better." 
 
 " Dorothy ! " exclaimed I, for there was none 
 to hear, and I was heart-pierced with her beauty 
 and her coldness, and the sudden knowledge 
 that, so far from friendliness or forgiveness, 
 her pride was but bent to show me every atom 
 of the formal stateliness and attention due to 
 the guest of honor and His Majesty's Com- 
 missioner. 
 
 " Sir ! " saith she, in reply to my outburst, 
 and nothing more. 
 
 " Dorothy," I said, " have you no mercy in 
 your heart? Is my offence so bitter that all my 
 love " I know not what I would have said.
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 203 
 
 She looked at me with chill disdain, and her 
 sweet lips curled. 
 
 "My Lord Commissioner," said she, "you 
 speak at random. I fear me you are not your- 
 self. The cold, perchance, hath been too much ? " 
 
 " Madam ! " I broke out, low and bitterly, 
 " the cold hath indeed been too much for me, as 
 you say : I am chilled to the heart ! " 
 
 " Indeed," she made answer ; " your Lordship 
 will do well to keep within the blaze then ; yet 
 't is but a moment you were warm enow ! Pray 
 draw a seat nearer, Sir Harry ! 'T would please 
 my father ill you should have lack of warmth in 
 his house." She made a dainty motion towards 
 the fire with her fan. 
 
 " Madam," I replied, biting my lips and 
 bowing low, " have no fear ; I have naught to 
 complain of, having ever received beyond what 
 I merited." 
 
 " You are over-modest ! " Mistress Dorothy 
 replied, calmly unfurling her great fan, and 
 fanning herself languidly, so lovely a sight 
 that my arms did ache to clasp her to my heart. 
 " Yet 't is said modesty becometh even very 
 great men I crave your Lordship's pardon, 
 did you speak?"
 
 204 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 Ay, did I, a smothered oath. I answered, 
 " Nay, madam ; 't were useless ! " 
 
 " Nay, then," said she with a somewhat height- 
 ened coloring, " your Lordship will excuse me, 
 who am not in the least chilled, the blaze 
 is over-warm." She dropped me a courtesy 
 and moved away, leaving me to grind my teeth 
 and curse myself for everything by turns. 
 
 And yet what had I to complain of? Never 
 was manner more faultless, courtesy more 
 precise. The finest dames in the land could 
 not have received His Majesty's self with more 
 punctilious etiquette ; not a Lady of Randolph 
 could have borne herself with an exacter grace. 
 And I had let her see I deemed it condescension 
 to wed with such as she ! O fool ! 
 
 I was standing oblivious to all but my fury 
 and bitterness and self-contempt, and now, the 
 room being filled with guests, and dinner being 
 announced, Wentworth approached me with 
 Mistress Dorothy upon his arm. As guest of 
 honor I was to escort the hostess, that no point 
 of formality might be set at naught. Our host 
 followed with Madam Bradford, and the rest of 
 the company in order. My sweetheart's hand 
 rested upon my sleeve as a snowflake might
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 205 
 
 have lain there ; and yet, for all its chill light- 
 ness, my heart beat high to feel it, and to see 
 the proud little head so near my shoulder, and 
 to hear the dainty feet in their high-heeled slip- 
 pers clicking beside me, and the stiff rustling of 
 her brocade gown sweeping along the oaken 
 floor, the queenliest little figure in all the 
 world. 
 
 The table, set forth with old plate and damask, 
 and loaded with good cheer of all kinds, stood 
 in the great dining-hall, which I have before 
 described to you ; and slaves stood in waiting 
 behind the chairs. Wentworth took one end of 
 the table, with Madam Bradford on his right; 
 and I was placed at the other end of the board, 
 at the right of Mistress Dorothy, whom I handed 
 to her seat with my best court bow. With much 
 rustling and bowing, the company took their 
 seats, and on a sign from Wentworth the worthy 
 Master Upton asked the Divine Grace in a 
 lengthy petition. Methought I observed signs 
 of relief on every face when the good man 
 brought his address to an end, and our host 
 gave the customary signal for the dinner to be 
 served. This he did by a stately wave of his 
 hand over the well-spread table, and the words, 
 " Friends, you see your dinner ! "
 
 206 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 At that instant, while our lips were opened to 
 make the response demanded by etiquette, there 
 was a piercing shriek, and in rushed Wentworth's 
 housekeeper, white as a sheet, and screaming 
 between every gasp, like one beside herself, 
 " Fire ! fire ! Lord save us ! the house hath 
 ta'en fire ! the fore part is all in flames ! O 
 Lord ! O Lord ! " 
 
 The guests had started up at her entrance, 
 and every cheek was ashen ; for truly, between 
 the shrieking woman and the hubbub and dis- 
 order which began to grow outside, with ser- 
 vants running hither and thither and screaming, 
 it was like to have been a scene of madness in 
 another minute. Meanwhile the crazy woman 
 went on shrieking : " O Lord ! O gentlemen ! 
 What shall we do ! " 
 
 I sprang from my seat. " Gentlemen," cried 
 I, "to the rescue! " 
 
 " Bravo ! Sir Harry," cried Bradford ; and 
 they all cried, " To the rescue ! " and jumped 
 from their chairs, when the voice of our host 
 rang out above the din. 
 
 " Gentlemen ! Sir Harry ! " 
 
 We stopped as if shot. Wentworth had risen, 
 his stern eyes blazing and his arm extended.
 
 A Strange Dinner- Party. 207 
 
 " Sit you down ! " said he. " No one stirreth 
 but at my command." 
 
 We every one of us sat down silently. I be- 
 lieve we should have done so had the fire been 
 upon us. 
 
 " 'T is well," said Wentworth, and more 
 gently, " I thank you, gentlemen, and you, my 
 Lord Commissioner, for your ready will, but 
 here hath no need." 
 
 At this moment the crying jade began to 
 shriek again, " O Lord ! O Lord ! There goeth 
 the timbers ! We are all lost ! " 
 
 " Remove that woman ! " said Wentworth, 
 sternly. In an instant she was borne out, still 
 shrieking, by half a dozen slaves. 
 
 " Open those doors ! " was our host's next 
 command. The double casements behind us 
 were flung instantly open by the servants, who, 
 all shaking with fright as they were, kept their 
 rolling white eyeballs fixed upon their master, 
 and obeyed his every gesture with the prompti- 
 tude of terror. 
 
 " Now," said Wentworth, " out with the 
 tables ! " 
 
 Twenty hands were laid upon them instantly, 
 but he stopped them with a gesture.
 
 2o8 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 " It needs not," said he ; " my servants know 
 their business." 
 
 We dropped our hands and stood mutely while 
 the great tables, groaning beneath the weight of 
 their furnishings, were borne out and set far 
 down the lawn beneath the elms. And all the 
 time the noise of the fire and the shrieks of the 
 house-servants grew louder. Yet Wentworth 
 stood immovable and stately at his place, and 
 for very shame none had dared to start. 
 
 "'Tis well," he said, when the tables were 
 established, and the mute, panic-stricken ser- 
 vants had carried the chairs out after. " Gen- 
 tlemen, lend your arms to conduct these ladies. 
 But first the air will be keen outside. And 
 Joe ! Sam ! " he turned to the slaves. "Go, 
 bring hither the wraps ! " 
 
 They disappeared, but were hurrying back in 
 an instant, their faces showing well-nigh white 
 through the black. 
 
 " How now ? " said Wentworth, impatiently. 
 
 " Please, sah," said the oldest, a venerable 
 fellow, his eyes rolling in his head, " the fire am 
 done burned 'em up it done clean " 
 
 " Peace ! " interrupted Wentworth ; " bring 
 whatever you can find, then. Quick ! the laun-
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 209 
 
 dry, the kitchen ! Take what there is to be 
 had." Setting the example, he lifted a broid- 
 ered table-cover from a stand and put it about 
 the shoulders of Madam Bradford, whose teeth 
 were chattering, indeed, but not with cold. And 
 as fast as the slaves returned, their arms heaped 
 with curtains, table-cloths, a motley assort- 
 ment, the strange wraps were donned hastily, 
 without a word or smile. 
 
 " Now," said We.ntworth, giving his arm to 
 Madam Bradford, who had just wit enough left 
 to take it, " to the tables ! " 
 
 I glanced at Dorothy. She was paler, but 
 her eyes burned proudly, and I saw that all her 
 father's spirit was afire within her. 
 
 A beam fell outside with a crash. 
 
 "To the tables!" commanded Wentworth, 
 unmoved. " The fire gaineth upon us." 
 
 " But, Master Wentworth, sir, 't is mad- 
 ness ! " cried Bradford at last, summoning cour- 
 age to speak. " Let us place these ladies in 
 safety that were but fitting but let not the 
 noble house go without an effort to save it. We 
 have lost precious minutes, but who knoweth if 
 it be yet too late ! Sir Harry, join your en- 
 treaties." he turned to me. 
 14
 
 2io A Strange Dinncr-Party. 
 
 " Sir," replied Wentworth, for all answer, 
 " the dinner, my guests, and my Lord Commis- 
 sioner are waiting ! To the tables! " 
 
 A knife in my heart had not made me wince 
 more. I glanced perforce at the maiden on my 
 arm, and saw a great proud light in her eyes. 
 Nay, I know not which were prouder of the two, 
 father or daughter. 
 
 There was a great sound of falling wood, and 
 a cry arose outside. 
 
 " The staircase, it hath fallen ! " 
 
 " Enough," said Wentworth ; " on to the 
 tables ! " and at the word the panic-stricken 
 guests trooped forth from the now blazing house 
 upon the lawn, and, marshalled by Wentworth, 
 seated themselves about the tables. 
 
 Stranger dinner-party sure did never eye of 
 man witness. Imagine the scene yourselves : 
 the wintry lawn ; the glittering tables set beneath 
 leafless elms ; the blue sky overhead ; the richly 
 dressed guests shivering in the keen air under- 
 neath their motley wrappings ; the panic-stricken 
 servants ; and for background the noble mansion 
 outlined against the sky, with flames already 
 bursting from its windows ; the roaring and 
 crackling ; the frightened cackling of hens and
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 211 
 
 geese , all the confusion ; and at the head of the 
 table the calm, unmoved presence of Wentworth 
 as he stood in his place and indicated the table 
 with a dignified gesture. 
 
 " Friends," said he, " your see your dinner ! " 
 And the frightened guests, with many a furtive 
 backward glance at the tongues of flame, made 
 haste to pipe up tremulously the customary, ex- 
 pected response : 
 
 " And a very good dinner we see ! " 
 The trembling servants passed the viands and 
 poured the wine, which the guests essayed ner- 
 vously to eat and drink with would-be ease and 
 comfort. Now and again the sound of a falling 
 beam would be echoed by a falling cup from 
 some shivering hand, or the cracking of timbers 
 by the rattle of glass in shaking fingers. Fitful 
 and effervescent attempts at gayety died away 
 in the ever-increasing, greedy roar of flames, 
 and answering sullen groans of wood, as room 
 after room fell into shapeless ruin. 
 
 Wentworth sat erect and imperturbable. He 
 did not once turn his head to look at the scene 
 of wrath and ruin behind him ; not a muscle of 
 his face quivered. Courteous, magnificent, and 
 attentive to his every duty, he kept up an easy
 
 212 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 and dignified flow of conversation, pressing 
 upon his guests the dainties and delicacies with 
 all the concern of a man who hath naught 
 weightier upon his mind; ever and anon letting 
 fall a glance of rebuke upon the hapless slave 
 who dropped a dish or overpoured a wineglass. 
 
 " A little more of the turkey, Mistress Brad- 
 ford, or the duck ? Nay, I protest you eat 
 nothing ! Is your tea agreeable, Mistress Wan- 
 ton? Master Bradford, Sir Harry, a glass of 
 Burgundy? Cudjoe, fill my Lord Commissioner's 
 glass. Dorothy, look you to Sir Harry's com- 
 fort. And so, Master Bradford, you deem there 
 will be no further trouble with those pestilent 
 malcontents ? " 
 
 What Bradford would have said man knoweth 
 not, for at that moment there was a louder crash, 
 so that the guests started anew in their seats ; 
 and looking up, I beheld the chimney which had 
 fallen, and all the gable of the house which still 
 stood had taken flames. I saw a sudden white- 
 ness in Dorothy's face, and then bethought me 
 't was her own room, wherein were all her treas- 
 ures and her mother's portrait. I started from 
 my seat, but two hands were clasped upon my 
 arm.
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 213 
 
 " Sir," said Dorothy, " what would you do ? " 
 
 " Your mother's portrait. I will save it." 
 
 I saw her suddenly flush, the tears stood in 
 her eyes, and the hand that held me fast by the 
 cuff trembled. 
 
 " Nay," she said, after a brief second's pause, 
 " what of it ? " 
 
 " Let me go, Dorothy ! Let me go ! " said I, 
 eagerly. " I will save it for thee ; 't is not yet 
 too late. Unloose me ! " 
 
 But her small hands held me with a clasp of 
 steel, and her sweet eyes looked at me, oh, how 
 strangely, while her face grew proud and cold. 
 
 " Nay," she said, " keep your seat, Sir Harry." 
 
 " Dorothy," cried I, bitterly, " thou art inex- 
 orable ! " 
 
 " Sir," she said, with a look that went through 
 my very heart, " what boots a picture more or 
 less ? See you not, we entertain the King's 
 Commissioner?" 
 
 Struck to the soul, I would have replied with 
 all the fire of my feelings ; but ere I had time 
 to speak, the strange girl had risen to her feet. 
 
 " Father," said she, and at her sweet, ringing 
 tones every eye turned to her where she stood 
 so proudly, the wineglass clutched hi one little
 
 214 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 hand. " Father," saith she, "our guests grow 
 cool, methinks, in this biting air. Were it not 
 well we warmed them with a toast? And since 
 my brother is afar, were it not fitting I took his 
 place, and named it ? " 
 
 Wentworth had risen at her word, and every 
 other man with him ; and now he looked down 
 the long table at his daughter, and I saw a glow 
 of answering pride kindle his stern face. 
 
 " It were right well, Dorothy," he made an- 
 swer. " Thy brother had not spoken more 
 aptly. Name thy toast, my child, though we 
 guess what 't will be." He bowed to me, and 
 all the guests turned in my direction, with their 
 glasses raised. 
 
 "I crave your pardon, father," answered 
 Dorothy, with spirit. " Not so. My Lord 
 Commissioner taketh not first place. Ladies 
 and gentlemen, loyal Americans all, I give you 
 the health of His Majesty the King ! May God 
 preserve him ! " 
 
 " God preserve him ! " echoed all, as the glasses 
 were drained to the lees. 
 
 " Fill your glasses again, gentlemen," quoth 
 the strange maiden, and sent her great eyes 
 flashing up and down the table, so that every
 
 A Strange Dinner- Party. 215 
 
 man obeyed her instantly. When 't was so, 
 " Gentlemen," saith she, lifting her glass very 
 high and slowly, and speaking so distinctly and 
 proudly that every word fell like a fine dagger 
 from her lips, cutting as it went, " I give you 
 our guest of honor, His Majesty's Commissioner, 
 the very noble Sir Harry Randolph, Lord of 
 Randolph. Drink, gentlemen ! 'T is an honor 
 you do yourselves ! " She raised the glass to 
 her lips with a superb gesture. 
 
 'T was too much to be borne. " Hold ! " I 
 cried, angrily, starting forward, laying my hand 
 upon hers. The glass dropped from her lips, 
 and she remained breathless, her eyes fixed 
 upon me with mingled defiance and dread, the 
 color coming and going in her face. The com- 
 pany stood as petrified. But I was myself at 
 last. Not the powers of all the earth could 
 have held me back. Drawing myself to all my 
 height, I turned to Wentworth, still keeping my 
 hand on Dorothy's, which as I went on trembled 
 more and more within it. 
 
 " Sir," said I, "you have received me honor- 
 ably ; you have entertained me courteously, nay, 
 as I think never guest was entertained before. 
 Honor, indeed, you would do me to drink my
 
 216 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 health, as you have proposed, yet I pray you 
 drink it not. I swear 't will be no joy nor pride 
 to me, but a bitterness and sorrow instead. I 
 pray you drink not to me, my noble host, gal- 
 lant gentlemen, fair ladies, if you may not have 
 leave to name me by the only title I desire to 
 claim, that of accepted suitor of this maiden 
 here, Mistress Dorothy Wentworth. Sir," I 
 hurried on ere Wentworth could speak, " I am 
 full conscious what I ask. Right well aware 
 that 't is the maddest presumption. There doth 
 not the man live who is worthy of her. My 
 hope must needs be altogether in your conde- 
 scension and in Mistress Dorothy's favor. And 
 if I be too bold," I turned me to her, " she will, 
 I trust, forgive me, in that all my pride is to lay 
 my name and fortune at her feet, where my heart 
 hath been these long weeks past. Dorothy," I 
 entreated, holding her hands close and warmly, 
 " wilt thou not speak for me ? or wilt thou reject 
 my suit, and deem me mad to dare presume it? 
 Am I altogether hateful to thee ? " 
 
 Thereupon my sweetheart lifted up her eyes. 
 She was blushing deeply, but there was a brave 
 light in their depths. 
 
 " Father," saith she, and faltered. " Father
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 217 
 
 thou hearest " And all the guests stood 
 speechless, looking from one to the other of us. 
 
 " Yea," answered Wentworth, gravely, " I 
 hear, Dorothy. Sir Harry," said he, "you have 
 proceeded somewhat strangely and without order 
 in your suit, nevertheless like a true and gallant 
 gentleman hath spoken, honorably alike to your- 
 self, to my daughter, and to me." There was 
 a warm murmur of assent from the company. 
 Wentworth bowed in acknowledgment of the 
 unsought confirmation. 
 
 "Nevertheless," he went on in his grave 
 fashion, " while I am sensible of the compli- 
 ment you pay us, there be one or two things I 
 would ask you. Have you bethought you well, 
 sir, you are the heir of a great house, and bear 
 a proud title in your own land ? Dorothy and 
 I " (oh, the superb pride of the man !) "are but 
 plain Christian people, commoners" 
 
 " Sir," I made haste to say, " there is no 
 house in England so great that would not be 
 honored to hold one of your family within it ; 
 and for my name and title, beseech your daugh- 
 ter to take both and ennoble them by linking 
 them with hers." 
 
 Such a glance as Dorothy's eyes gave me !
 
 2i8 A Strange Dinner- Party. 
 
 I thought I detected a quiver of gratification on 
 the stern old Puritan's face, while a little hum 
 of satisfaction assured me that the New England 
 pride had answered to that touch. 
 
 " 'T is well and honorably spoken," said Went- 
 worth, " but there remaineth another point. 'T is 
 the custom in your class a sober and discreet 
 one I have ever held it that a wife shall bring 
 a portion of worldly goods to her husband." 
 He paused, and then said quietly, " Enough 
 remaineth for our moderate wants, but from to- 
 day " (this was the only allusion he made to his 
 loss) " Dorothy will be but a dowerless bride for 
 an English nobleman." 
 
 " Sir," I broke in impetuously, " she is but 
 the richer for it ! I beseech you do me not so 
 much wrong ! Nay, I shame me that I cannot 
 even grieve sincerely at your loss, since it hath 
 taught me how a great man meeteth such and 
 showeth but the greater for it ! " 
 
 "Enough, Sir Harry!" said Wentworth, a 
 deep flush suffusing his bronze cheeks. " How 
 say you for this matter, my friends? Hath not 
 my Lord Commissioner borne himself honor- 
 ably and well herein ? " 
 
 There was a hearty assent.
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 219 
 
 " In truth, Master Wentworth," said His Ex- 
 cellency, kindly, " I see not how in reason you 
 can refuse to make these children happy, pro- 
 vided," he added, smiling, " that fair Mistress 
 Dorothy be of his Lordship's favor." At this 
 all eyes were turned to my sweetheart, whose 
 dear face was growing pale and red by turns, 
 though she stood it out bravely, nor even took 
 her little hand from mine. Her father's eyes, 
 too, rested upon her, and his stern face grew 
 soft. 
 
 " Dorothy," saith he, striving to make his 
 voice becomingly steady, "Dorothy, how say 
 you? Sir Harry hath wooed you openly, but 
 perchance with the more honor. Needs must 
 your reply be open. Yet there is no constraint 
 in the matter. Answer like an honest Puritan 
 maiden who hath no cause for fear or shame." 
 
 "Father," saith my darling, lifting her true 
 eyes to his, " I will do naught without your 
 approval, but if it doth not displease you " 
 her sweet lips faltered and her eyes sought mine 
 and then the ground. With a brave effort she 
 lifted them straight and spoke out loud and 
 clear. " Father," saith she, " I love him ! " 
 
 Wentworth's whole face changed. " Take
 
 220 A Strange Dinner-Party. 
 
 her, Sir Harry," he said, " and may God bless 
 and keep you both." Whereupon I caught my 
 darling to me, reckless what might think the 
 guests about. In sooth, Puritans though they 
 were, I think the human heart to be the same 
 the world over, and that it will still throb the 
 faster in sympathy with true lovers. 
 
 I was recalled to myself by the sound of mine 
 own name. 
 
 " Sir Harry Randolph ! " cried His Excellency, 
 Governor Hopkins, holding up his brimming 
 glass. " Drink, good friends, to the health and 
 happiness of Sir Harry Randolph, the accepted 
 suitor of Mistress Dorothy, the future Lady 
 Randolph ! " 
 
 It was drunk with enthusiasm, despite Dor- 
 othy's blushes ; and then followed : " Our host, 
 Master John Wentworth, the type of a noble 
 Puritan gentleman." Ere the applause which 
 followed had died away, Wentworth 's own voice 
 was heard above it. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said he, his tall and stately 
 figure outlined against the burning house, which 
 the greedy flames were still licking hungrily, 
 " Gentlemen, I will give you a worthier toast." 
 In his turn he raised his glass. " New England,
 
 A Strange Dinner-Party. 221 
 
 our country ! " said he, and his voice was like a 
 clarion, " The land which we have redeemed, 
 the wilderness which we have made to blos- 
 som, the home which our forefathers won with 
 so much toil, so many hardships, the free soil, 
 to advance whose sacred interests, to secure 
 whose peaceful future, to uphold whose dignity, 
 to protect and cherish whose liberties, we and 
 our lives and homes and children are dedicated 
 forever: New England ! God bless her 1 " He 
 drained his glass and cast it to the ground, and 
 with a mighty cheer every other glass was 
 drained and broken. 
 
 " New England ! God bless and save her ! " 
 echoed every lip, while eyes were dim and strong 
 faces quivered. Verily, these people love their 
 land! 
 
 As the last glass shivered to the ground it was 
 answered by a dull crash ; the last wall of the 
 house sank and fell. Wentworth did not turn 
 his head. Dorothy's little hand lay in mine; 
 and all at once methought I heard the Christ- 
 mas bells ring out in England.
 
 THE BASKET OF ANITA.
 
 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 " SIXTEEN in all. Five large ones, two small 
 queer ones, four medium, three with the Greek 
 pattern, the little brown one, and this beauty. 
 Just look at it, Manuelo ! " and the speaker 
 balanced in her hand, with an air of triumph, 
 the delicate basket whose intricately woven 
 tints formed a whole fascinating even to the 
 eye of the uninitiated. 
 
 " It is a good one, sefiorita," admitted Man- 
 uelo, guardedly. " The sefiorita has as fine a 
 lot of baskets now as any one in the valley, sav- 
 ing only old Anita. Ah ! if the sefiorita could 
 see hers ! " 
 
 He stopped abashed, for the young girl had 
 clapped her hands over her ears, and was 
 shaking her head laughingly at him. 
 
 " Manuelo ! Manuelo ! " said she, reproach- 
 fully, " how many times have I forbidden you
 
 226 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 to mention old Anita to me ? Is n't it enough 
 to spend all my time, and money, pursuing 
 every basket which reaches my ears, without 
 being haunted by the ghost of old Anita? 
 Besides," she added, irrelevantly, " you know I 
 don't believe in old Anita and her baskets." 
 
 Manuelo smiled ; a smile like swift sunshine. 
 " That is because you have not seen them, 
 senorita," said he. " If you had, you would 
 believe in no others. There is one of them so 
 high, senorita," with a graceful turn of the 
 wrist indicating the size. 
 
 " Three feet ! Why, it is a mammoth, 
 Manuelo ! " 
 
 " Andjitte /" he cast a disdainful glance at 
 the baskets about her, " you have nothing like 
 it, senorita. But that is not all. Where the 
 pattern goes there are feathers, woodpecker's 
 feathers woven in, all of the brightest scarlet, 
 oh, far gayer than these ! " 
 
 Elsa shook her head, dejectedly. 
 
 " You are determined to make me miserable, 
 Manuelo. Now, what is the use of telling me 
 this when Anita and her baskets are how many 
 miles away ? and you know she would n't sell 
 one of them for less than the price of a small
 
 The Basket of Anita. 227 
 
 ranch. If I were a man I might mount my 
 horse, make off into the wilderness, and raid 
 the mystical Anita for the sake of her baskets ; 
 but since I am not " with an expressive 
 smile the young girl turned again to the con- 
 templation of her treasures. 
 
 It was a pretty enough sight, Manuelo 
 thought so, at least, the dainty creature sur- 
 rounded by the ancient baskets, beneath a frame 
 of splendid scarlet passion-flowers. The sun- 
 light glinted on her golden hair and floating 
 dress ; and all about and beneath lay the 
 fragrant groves of orange and lemon, and the 
 gardens where roses red, white, and golden 
 
 held carnival all the year round. A pretty 
 sight, Manuelo thought, quite unaware what a 
 striking element he himself added, cast upon 
 the lower step with all the lazy grace of his 
 nation in his figure, all its dark beauty in his 
 face, and all its picturesqueness in his costume, 
 
 loose shirt, wide trousers, sombrero, and gay 
 kerchief knotted about his throat. By his side 
 lay his guitar. 
 
 There were two things on earth that Manuelo 
 loved, his guitar and Lolita. 
 
 Lolita was loosely tethered in the grove at
 
 228 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 this moment. There was nothing in her appear- 
 ance to distinguish her from any other of the 
 score of bronchos in the village. But as for 
 the guitar, there was none like it in all the 
 South or West. In the first place, it was very 
 old. Manuelo's mother had fingered it, and her 
 mother's mother before her. They said it came 
 first from Spain, a love-gift from some ardent 
 Spanish lover, in the days when Manuelo's 
 ancestors were great people in the new land, 
 and to be a Mexican was to be of the nobility 
 of California. Be that as it might, nothing else 
 remained of all the traditional grandeur and 
 pride save the guitar, and, perhaps, a statuesque 
 turn of its young heritor's head. And the 
 quaint golden inlaid tracery of the guitar had 
 grown rusty, while the statuesque head served 
 only to set off a ragged sombrero. 
 
 That troubled Manuelo not at all, strange 
 compound of pride and carelessness, fiery 
 impetuosity and supine indolence that he was. 
 
 His old curmudgeon of an uncle, with whom 
 he lived, might scold and swear, rolling Spanish 
 oaths at him ; Manuelo was thoroughly con- 
 tented with his meagre lot, equally happy 
 while tearing madly about the country on
 
 The Basket of Anita. 229 
 
 Lolita, or lying idly at the feet of Elsa Loring, 
 singing Southern melodies to his beloved 
 guitar. 
 
 How many hours he had spent so since blue- 
 eyed Elsa came to occupy the hammock on the 
 porch at Las Delicias, neither Manuelo nor Elsa 
 cared to reckon. To Elsa it was such a natural 
 thing to have him at her feet; to Manuelo, so 
 simply natural to be there. And now Elsa had 
 contracted the basket craze. 
 
 " What will you do with them all, senorita ? " 
 demanded Manuelo, abruptly, after watching 
 her silently for a space. 
 
 Elsa looked up from the five she was critically 
 trying to make a choice between. 
 
 " Do with them ? " she repeated, vaguely ; 
 " oh, I shall take them home with me." She 
 blushed a little. Manuelo said nothing. " You 
 see," continued Elsa, confidentially, " in our 
 part of the country they don't have anything 
 like them, nothing half so beautiful, and so the 
 people are all wild about them. The more I 
 can get the better I shall like it, and the 
 prouder I shall be. Only" she added, rue- 
 fully "I can't get many more, for I have 
 pretty nearly ruined myself already in spite of
 
 230 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 the wonderful bargains you have found for 
 me." 
 
 Manuelo looked pleased. " You need not 
 give yourself trouble for that, senorita," said he, 
 " there are more, plenty more, and cheap. I 
 will find them for you." 
 
 Elsa's blue eyes gave him a glance before 
 which his own fell for sheer joy. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "I dare say you will. I 
 believe you even cause them to spring from the 
 ground. I am not sure you don't sit up nights 
 to manufacture them yourself, and all for a 
 song! Look at that beauty, only four dollars 
 it cost me. You could have sold it to the 
 Englishman for double. I sometimes think, 
 Manuelo, that you are too good to me." 
 
 Manuelo looked out into the grove at 
 Lolita. 
 
 " Sefiorita," he stammered, " impossible ! It 
 is you who are too good." 
 
 " And all the other things, the walks, and 
 drives, and music," persisted the girl, " when I 
 was so ill, and they brought me here to cure me, 
 and I was so homesick that I almost preferred 
 to die. Do you know what I should have done 
 without your music ? I should have gone 
 mad."
 
 The Basket of Anita. 231 
 
 She turned her eyes to him. Actually there 
 were tears in them. 
 
 Manuelo sprang from his step. " Sefiorita," 
 he cried, quite beside himself, " I beg of you ! 
 It was all nothing ! I loved to do it, sefiorita, 
 the walks, the drives, the music ; and as for the 
 baskets, a miserable set of wretched ones, not 
 worth your thanks," he added, in order to dis- 
 pose of them utterly. " Now, had they been the 
 baskets of Anita, the seflorita might indeed " 
 
 And Elsa threw back her golden head and 
 laughed merrily with still moist eyes. 
 
 " Aunt Mary," she said, an hour later 
 Manuelo, after singing her many songs, had 
 gone in search of the mail, a duty he had long 
 since assumed, counting himself richly paid for 
 the dusty ride by the smile home letters brought 
 to Elsa's lips " Aunt Mary," said she, " this 
 is the loveliest country on earth, but it would 
 be rather dull without Manuelo, don't you think ? 
 Tell me, what can I give him to show how 
 grateful I am to him ? " 
 
 Aunt Mary thought a moment, her mild eyes 
 fastened upon the delicate wild-rose face before 
 her. Perhaps that very thing suggested her 
 reply.
 
 232 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " why not give him your 
 photograph ? " 
 
 Elsa sat bolt upright in horror. 
 
 " Good gracious, Aunt Mary ! My photograph 
 to Manuelo ! " 
 
 " Well, my dear," answered the placid lady, 
 " there is nothing he would like so well. You 
 asked my opinion. You owe a great deal to 
 his devoted service. He has shown himself a 
 faithful friend, and it would please him to be 
 treated as such. Besides, the lad is a gentle- 
 man. Under the circumstances there can be no 
 impropriety." 
 
 " No, of course not," murmured Elsa, blush- 
 ing daintily, " but it is very, very unorthodox ! 
 Still, as you say, I owe him a great deal." 
 
 She sat very thoughtfully after that for a long 
 time, leaning back in the hammock, letting her 
 eyes wander from the nest of roses and passion- 
 flowers about her, over palms, and pepper-tops, 
 to the distant snow-capped peaks against the 
 sky of more than Italian blue. All that land- 
 scape was full of Manuelo to her, full as her 
 days had been since she first came, a delicate 
 invalid, who could do no more than lie all day 
 in the hammock and listlessly absorb the sun-
 
 The Basket of Anita. 233 
 
 light. Well, it was Manuelo who swung the 
 hammock for her the very day after her arrival, 
 Manuelo, who chanced just then to be irrigating 
 the orange-groves at Las Delicias. 
 
 Elsa's fragile grace and fairness, the golden 
 hair and blue eyes which looked twice angelic 
 beside the florid Spanish beauties and tropical 
 wealth of color all about, exercised a subtle spell 
 upon Manuelo from the outset. Her sufferings 
 and needs appealed to all that was chivalrous 
 in his ardent nature. From watching to occa- 
 sional ready aid, from that to daily service, was 
 a rapid growth. Never had lady more devoted 
 cavalier than Elsa in the dark-eyed Mexican. It 
 was he who guided her walks ; who found a safe 
 little mustang for her ; who devised excursions ; 
 who piloted her to all the points of beauty; 
 who introduced her to the Padre at the old 
 mission, and trotted out for her benefit all pictur- 
 esque characters in the neighborhood ; who ran- 
 sacked huts and scoured ranches in pursuit of 
 Indian baskets, when finally the fell mania of 
 collecting seized upon Elsa. 
 
 " Manuelo," she asked him once, marvelling 
 at his unwearied energy, "why is it that you, 
 who are so full of activity, don't do something ? "
 
 234 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 " Seftorita," he replied, calmly, looking up 
 from under his sombrero, " there is nothing to 
 do." 
 
 "Then why not go away?" persisted Elsa. 
 " You are young and strong. You waste your 
 life in this sleepy little village." 
 
 Manuelo's eyes grew suddenly very far 
 away. 
 
 " Who knows ?" said he, dreamily; "I have 
 thought of it. It is dull at times, and Pedro 
 grows Grosser. There is my cousin Jesus in the 
 Esperanza mines. There there is always some- 
 thing. Perhaps some day ! " 
 
 " Some day is no day," said Elsa, shaking her 
 head. " You should make up your mind and go 
 at once." 
 
 Manuelo glanced about, at the garden, the 
 vine-covered porch, the cool little fountain in its 
 forest of calla lilies, then he looked at Elsa and 
 smiled very sweetly. 
 
 " Senorita," said he, " it is good here too." 
 He picked up the guitar, touched the chords, 
 and swept the girl away with the magic of a 
 Southern song. 
 
 Elsa thought of all these things and many 
 more now. The result of her meditation was
 
 The Basket of Anita. 235 
 
 that she selected from her desk that night a 
 photograph of herself. On the back she wrote, 
 " Manuelo, from Elsa Loring, with grateful 
 thanks." 
 
 She gave it to him the next day with a little 
 graceful, merry phrase; but she was totally 
 unprepared for its effect upon Manuelo. 
 
 A great wave of color, of light, surged into 
 his face and glowing eyes. He absolutely 
 trembled. For a moment he could say nothing. 
 When he did speak, it was but two stammering, 
 tremulous words. 
 
 " Senorita 1 Gracias ! mille gracias ! " 
 
 "It is nothing, nothing at all, Manuelo," said 
 Elsa, lightly. But in her heart she had a sudden 
 misgiving as to the wisdom of Aunt Mary's 
 benevolence. 
 
 Manuelo never spoke again of the gift. Only 
 he was, if possible, more serviceable and gentle 
 and thoughtful than ever, while his mellow voice 
 and plaintive guitar might be heard nightly 
 floating above the perfumed groves of Las 
 Delicias. 
 
 Elsa grew fonder and fonder of him, and 
 treated him like a favored brother. She found 
 the country, the climate, and Manuelo all perfect,
 
 236 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 and declared that she herself should be perfectly 
 happy but for one thing. 
 
 " And that one thing ? " said Aunt Mary, 
 with a smile. 
 
 " The baskets of Anita," asserted Elsa, as with 
 a mischievous laugh she disappeared into the 
 house. 
 
 The peaceful weeks flew by. In a land where 
 there is nothing to mark the flight of time save 
 fresh succession of flowers, time flies faster than 
 elsewhere. The oranges came, and ripened 
 upon the trees into luscious globes of juicy 
 sweetness; the almonds blossomed, and the 
 apricots and peaches turned the landscape into 
 a Japanese garden of pearl and white. The pop- 
 pies blossomed and ran across the mesas, acres 
 of them, waves of living, palpitating orange- 
 golden glow. The larks came and sang over 
 them. One by one out came the multitudinous 
 wild flowers and carpeted every inch of ground, 
 running boldly into the very poppy-fields. And, 
 finally, when every tree and bush and bit of land 
 was set in flower and leaf and clothing green, 
 the roses held their perfect April festival. By 
 millions they waved and climbed and bloomed 
 extravagantly on every hand. White and gold
 
 The Basket of Anita. 237 
 
 and crimson, and every tint between, the land 
 disappeared under roses, the whole face of the 
 country glowed and blossomed with them. 
 
 So, perfumed and flattered and wooed, and 
 caressed by flowers and sun and softest air, the 
 fragile Elsa strengthened her hold of life daily, 
 and bloomed, like the land about her, into 
 beauty and sudden happiness. Such a change 
 had come over her. Manuelo was not a little 
 proud of it. 
 
 " Senorita," said he, " you should live always 
 in our South." 
 
 Basket-hunting remained Elsa's favorite oc- 
 cupation. She was constantly renewing her 
 determination to consider the collection com- 
 plete, and as constantly being lured from it by 
 the sight of a novel form, a quaint pattern, or 
 some " bargain too good to be lost." 
 
 Her collection was quite a theme of interest 
 to all the inhabitants of the little village who 
 knew her, each one of them personally, by this 
 time. They were fond of bringing their friends 
 to see the assortment which Elsa was always 
 ready to display, and more than one excellent 
 bargain found its way to Elsa's ears through 
 their interest. It was early days then. If Elsa
 
 238 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 went back now to the village she would find 
 baskets rarer than roses in an Eastern winter, 
 and held at proportionate prices. But in these 
 days she had it much her own way. 
 
 Many and various were the baskets. Great 
 bell-shaped black and white ones ; tall, delicate, 
 vase-like shapes; odd ones like hour-glasses 
 broken abruptly ; some small and dainty like 
 a lady's bonbonniere ; others flat and like tiny 
 saucers for sweet-breathed violets, there was 
 no shape, size, or texture missing from Elsa's 
 store. Of every age, tint, degree of wholeness 
 and cleanliness, truly they formed a treasure 
 to make a connoisseur's heart beat high and 
 enviously. 
 
 One unusually warm afternoon Manuelo rode 
 up to the entrance of Las Delicias. He had 
 been setting out orange-slips all day, and then 
 had ridden a couple of miles beyond to secure 
 a basket of which Francisco Martinez had told 
 him over their work. Baskets were growing 
 scarce, and Manuelo had to look farther afield 
 each day. 
 
 This one proved to be a miserable affair, 
 small, dingy, and ragged, besides smelling most 
 self-assertingly of all its latest uses. Manuelo
 
 The Basket of Anita. 239 
 
 almost decided not to take it at all, but he hated 
 to go back empty-handed. The owner com- 
 pounded for "four bits," and finally Manuelo 
 left the hut with the basket in his hand and 
 disdain in his eyes. 
 
 " Still," thought he, solacingly, " it is one 
 more, and will amuse the senorita." 
 
 He made Lolita fast to the usual pepper-tree. 
 " Here is Manuelo now," he heard Elsa say, as 
 he came up the path. And then a fierce pang 
 of jealousy smote his heart. 
 
 On the top of the wide steps sat Elsa, radiant, 
 and Aunt Mary close behind ; and in front of 
 Elsa, huge, mellowed by age to a beguiling 
 brown, and with a great, florid pattern sprawl- 
 ing alluringly about its wide mouth, stood the 
 king of all baskets. Yet it was not the basket, 
 nor Elsa's triumphant eyes, which Manuelo 
 noticed with that bitter pang, but the lounging 
 figure of Josd Silva on the step below. 
 
 Josd was the natural rival of Manuelo. In 
 the first place Jose' was a year older, and an 
 inch taller, and as agile with his feet as Manuelo 
 with his fingers, the best dancer, as Manuelo 
 was the best musician, in San Miguel. In the 
 second place, Jose had in his blood that taint
 
 240 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 which no Mexican ever pardons, the Indian 
 taint, and Manuelo was a Mexican Caballero 
 at heart, with all the pride and prejudice of his 
 race hot within him. There was no love lost 
 between the two. Doubtless it was more to 
 anger Manuelo than for any other purpose that 
 Jose', knowing well his devotion to Elsa, had 
 he not ridiculed it for months back as openly as 
 he dared? had taken the pains to bring her a 
 basket which far outrivalled any Manuelo had 
 ever been able to find. 
 
 "No doubt he stole it," thought Manuelo, 
 bitterly, as he went up the steps. He was too 
 proud to show his feelings, except by an extra 
 touch of Castilian dignity as he saluted the 
 ladies and Jose*. 
 
 " Only look, Manuelo ! " cried Elsa, unable to 
 suppress her excitement. "Jose" has brought 
 me the most magnificent basket ! Only see how 
 fine it is, and what a pattern ! He says it is at 
 least a hundred years old. Is n't it superb ? " 
 
 " It is very fine, senorita," answered Manuelo, 
 proudly. 
 
 " And only ten dollars," said Elsa, exultantly. 
 " Think of it ! Why, I would n't have missed 
 it for half as much again."
 
 The Basket of Anita. 241 
 
 Jose* smiled, a swift, flashing smile. He was 
 very handsome when he smiled. 
 
 Manuelo hated him. 
 
 " Then take care, senorita," said Jose", " I 
 may raise my price." 
 
 Elsa laughed. " No," she said, " I am not 
 afraid. You are honest ; all you Mexicans are. 
 Look at Manuelo ; he has sold me baskets for a 
 song all winter." 
 
 Josd glanced, just glanced, at the baskets 
 about him, and then back at his own, and he 
 smiled a little. The smile said as plainly as 
 words, " I am too polite to say so, but such 
 baskets ! Now mine ! " 
 
 Manuelo's blood boiled. He, too, looked 
 bitterly at the baskets he had gathered with 
 such loving pride. How coarse and dingy and 
 common they had all at once grown beside the 
 magnificent basket of Jose* ! And as for the last 
 wretched one, he would gladly have thrown it 
 out into the grove, had such a thing been pos- 
 sible. At this very moment Elsa caught sight 
 of it. 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed, "what is that in your 
 hand ? another basket for me ? " 
 
 Manuelo gathered all his Castilian pride. 
 16
 
 242 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 He produced the basket and handed it to her 
 indifferently. 
 
 "It is a wretched one, sefiorita," he said, 
 calmly, "but will serve to increase your col- 
 lection." 
 
 Elsa took it and looked at it silently. 
 
 Josd looked at it too, and smiled. 
 
 " It was very kind of you to bring it," said 
 Elsa, gently, " and I only wonder you could find 
 any, you have brought me so many." She 
 put it beside the others, then she stood off and 
 looked at the entire row. Manuelo watched 
 the varying expression as she looked from one 
 to another. When she came to the monster 
 which headed the line with an air of conscious 
 superiority (for which Manuelo could have 
 kicked it), her eyes brightened with delight, 
 and she clasped her hands together, naively. 
 Manuelo's heart contracted. " Oh, you beauty ! " 
 she exclaimed, involuntarily ; then, " I believe 
 I shall have to give up collecting now," she 
 said, with a laugh. " I shall never be satisfied 
 with anything less than this again, and there 
 are no more, there can't be any more like it, 
 can there, Manuelo ?" She turned to him, con- 
 fidingly. " Did you ever see a basket more 
 beautiful than this ? "
 
 The Basket of Anita. 243 
 
 Jose" cast a glance of malice. Manuelo drew 
 himself up proudly. 
 
 " Sefiorita," said he, "yes, the baskets of 
 Anita ! " Then he felt himself grow scarlet, 
 for there was an irrepressible ripple of laughter, 
 quickly suppressed, from Aunt Mary, and a 
 hoarse chuckle from Jose'. Even Elsa had 
 smiled a swift, involuntary smile. But Elsa 
 was a little gentlewoman, and there was no 
 mistaking the sudden passion of Manuelo's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes, surely," she said, with easy natural- 
 ness, " I had forgotten the beautiful baskets of 
 Anita." Then she picked up one of the lesser 
 baskets, crowned it with scarlet passion-flowers, 
 and called upon them all to admire the effect. 
 
 It was gracefully and graciously done, and 
 Manuelo knew it. He took up his hat quickly. 
 
 " Adios, sefiorita ! " said he. Elsa looked up 
 quickly. 
 
 " Are you going already, Manuelo ? Will you 
 not stay and sing for us ? " 
 
 He shook his head. "Thanks, senorita ; " 
 catching the mocking eyes of Jose* he murmured 
 something about "manana." Then he turned 
 away down the rose-bordered path under the
 
 244 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 olives, carrying his head very high indeed, 
 while the guitar dangled at his side. 
 
 Poor Manuelo ! He knew worst of all 
 that he had betrayed himself; that all his pride 
 had not availed. Ridiculed, despised, his lov- 
 ing work of all the winter made worthless in a 
 single moment, and finally to be misbelieved. 
 He had not minded Elsa's laughing jests at old 
 Anita all winter, what a different thing they 
 sounded now in the light of Josh's mocking eyes ! 
 Manuelo set his teeth and his face grew stern. 
 
 "We shall see if they will believe or no," 
 said he. 
 
 He unfastened Lolita, threw himself upon 
 her, thrust his heels into her sides, and without 
 a backward glance at the house galloped 
 away. 
 
 Old Pedro was standing in front of the dilap- 
 idated adobe house when the clattering of 
 swift hoofs came up the road, and Manuelo, 
 leaping lightly down, with a dexterous turn of 
 the rein made the pony fast to a low pepper- 
 tree. Then he came up to Pedro, who took 
 his pipe from his mouth aud regarded him 
 disapprovingly. 
 
 " How now, lazy bones ! " grumbled he.
 
 The Basket of Anita. 245 
 
 Manuelo was pale, and the dust lay thickly 
 upon his purple kerchief. 
 
 " Money ! " said Manuelo, briefly. 
 
 Old Pedro sniffed scornfully, and put his pipe 
 back again. Manuelo came a step nearer. 
 
 " I want money ! you hear ? I must and I will 
 have it ! " 
 
 " Do you expect me to give it to you, then, 
 idler ? Where is that from the orange picking? 
 Gone ! thrown away ! and you think I will give 
 you more to throw in the dust," Pedro's voice 
 was raised discordantly, " good-for-nothing ! 
 Not I ! " 
 
 " See," said Manuelo, " will you lend it?" 
 
 " No," said Pedro, " not a cent will I ! " 
 
 Manuelo made a despairing gesture. 
 
 " Have it I must, and will ! " He turned away, 
 leaned against Lolita, one hand thrown across 
 her neck, and thought desperately. 
 
 Old Pedro watched him curiously. Suddenly 
 an evil light came into his eyes. 
 
 " Manuelito," said he, caressingly. 
 
 " Yes," said Manuelo, mechanically; he was 
 thinking, thinking. 
 
 " You want that money badly ? " with an evil 
 grin.
 
 246 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 " Desperately." 
 
 " Good ! Give me the guitar, you shall have 
 it." 
 
 Manuelo started violently. Involuntarily he 
 laid his hand upon it. Sell the guitar, his best 
 beloved, his treasure ! He dragged it hastily 
 round, and glared at it, the sole remnant of all 
 the faded glories of his family. As soon part 
 with Lolita ! 
 
 " Good ! " said old Pedro, with a sneer ; " you 
 can do without the money, idiot, that 's plain to 
 see." He turned to go in. 
 
 " Wait ! " said Manuelo. He unstrung the 
 guitar from his shoulder, and held it out in both 
 hands to Pedro. 
 
 " How much for it ? " said he. 
 
 Old Pedro came back grumbling. The guitar 
 was very old, the inlaid part shabby ; it would 
 need new strings ; he feared the tone was not 
 what it had been. 
 
 " Twenty-five dollars," said Manuelo, sternly, 
 "and it is yours." 
 
 Pedro held up his hands to heaven. 
 
 Twenty-five dollars ! Saints above ! was he 
 made of money ? Fifteen would be ruinous. 
 
 " Twenty-five dollars now, on the spot, or I
 
 The Basket of Anita. 247 
 
 will take it to the Englishman, who you know 
 will give me thirty. Yes or no ! " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 Without a word Manuelo slung the guitar 
 over his head and turned to Lolita. 
 
 " Now, did ever one see such a hot head ! " 
 cried old Pedro, in grieved surprise. " A word 
 is a blow with him. Here, madcap, give me 
 the guitar and take the money. Besides, the 
 Englishman is away, and you are in haste to 
 throw the good money in the dust, I warrant. 
 Come, bring on the guitar." And so, grumbling 
 and swearing, the old man went in and unearthed 
 his miserly guarded store. Manuelo stood by 
 impassive and silent, having once more unslung 
 the guitar. 
 
 " Here," said Pedro at last, reluctantly hand- 
 ing the money to him. It went to Pedro's heart 
 to part with these dollars, but there was conso- 
 lation in the guitar. He knew, if Manuelo did 
 not, what the curio-hunting Englishman would 
 give for the rarest guitar in America. 
 
 Manuelo took the money, laid the guitar in 
 the grasping hands outstretched for it, and 
 turned away. He leaped straight upon Lolita, 
 and paying no heed to the questions and com-
 
 248 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 mands which Pedro screamed after him, rode 
 off under the drooping peppers. 
 
 " The mad fool ! " grumbled Pedro. And 
 then he looked at the guitar and chuckled to 
 himself. 
 
 Three days and three nights Manuelo loped 
 southward to the mountains. He stopped each 
 night at some ranchero's, but each morning's 
 sun found him again on Lolita's back, his can- 
 tina stuffed with some frugal provision for the 
 day. The mountains grew steeper, the ranches 
 lengthened into broad domains holding each 
 many square miles in its boundaries ; the vil- 
 lages dwindled into mere scattered hamlets, and 
 finally there was not much else than a rude trail 
 from one solitary adobe hut to another. But it 
 grew ever more picturesque. The chaparal- 
 covered hills were abloom with silver ; quails 
 and wood-doves, jack-rabbits and squirrels 
 started up in all directions from under Lolita's 
 feet; and the yuccas, myriads of them, stood 
 thickly over the sides of the great hills, and 
 high on impassable ledges above the wild ra- 
 vines, like the multitudinous snowy banners of 
 a hidden army.
 
 The Basket of Anita. 249 
 
 It was very still. There were no carriages, 
 still less railroads. Only now and then the 
 figure of a horseman going at the easy lope 
 which replaces a walk where distances are al- 
 ways measured by miles, or a solitary tourist 
 with his bag and gun slung across his shoulder. 
 For, year by year, as the ranches go, as the 
 " Greaser " and the Indian go, as all the semi- 
 tropical Spanish-Bohemianism is driven farther 
 back, the picturesque-loving tourist takes refuge 
 more and more in " tramping " it through the 
 by-ways of California. 
 
 It was late on the afternoon of the third day 
 when Manuelo, loping along over a level mesa, 
 beheld high upon a hillside the object of his 
 quest, a gray patch which his experienced 
 eye knew for a cluster of adobe huts. He drew 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 " So," he muttered, " there they are. It is 
 well." Then he bent and stroked Lolita's neck 
 re assuredly. 
 
 "Courage, my darling," said he, "we are 
 almost there, and then a good supper and a 
 night's rest for thee." 
 
 At that moment, round the sharp turn of the 
 road came a pedestrian ; a pedestrian at whom
 
 250 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 Manuelo glanced carelessly, then with sudden 
 wonder, then with a thrill, a shock which made 
 his heart bound and stand still. 
 
 The stranger was young, thirty perhaps, tall 
 and slender. He walked with the assured gait 
 of a mountain-climber, but his jaunty costume 
 betrayed the "civilizee," if not the dandy. A 
 picturesque sombrero shaded his handsome 
 face, out of which two clear gray eyes looked 
 coolly and merrily. Certainly there was noth- 
 ing in all this to make Manuelo's heart behave 
 so madly ! The stranger carried a gun across 
 his shoulder, and from a leather strap hung a 
 bag, sketching-stool, and a mammoth Indian 
 basket. Upon this basket the gaze of Manuelo 
 was fastened with silent horror. Big, brown, 
 finer than woven silk ; and woven in a marvel- 
 lous pattern which showed a constant scarlet 
 gleam throughout it, Manuelo would have 
 known it among ten thousand others, the 
 basket of Anita ! Meanwhile the stranger had 
 approached, and lifting his hat with a smiling 
 " Buenos dios, senor ! " was passing by. At 
 the same instant Manuelo reined Lolita straight 
 across the path. " Senor," said he, " a thou- 
 sand pardons ! " He leaped from his horse. 
 The stranger regarded him coolly but friendlily.
 
 The Basket of Anita. 251 
 
 " A thousand pardons, senor," repeated Man- 
 uelo, agitatedly, taking off his hat. " You have 
 there a fine basket, senor ! " 
 
 The " senor " smiled. " You are a connois- 
 seur, then, my friend ? " said he. " Yes, it is a 
 magnificent specimen." He pulled it round and 
 contemplated it with satisfaction. " I bought 
 it from an old Indian woman up yonder," he 
 added, " and I am inclined to think I was in 
 luck, though she fleeced me to a pretty extent. 
 It weighs more than a feather, too," he added, 
 smiling as he readjusted it with a little shrug. 
 
 " Senor," Manuelo's heart beat so fast and 
 hard it must almost have been visible through 
 his jacket, "as you say, it weighs ; you will 
 find it will grow heavier as you go, sefior. If 
 you would care to part with it " 
 
 " Thanks ! " said the stranger, calmly, " I am 
 in nowise anxious." 
 
 " If it were a question of the price ? " 
 
 " It is not in the least a question of the 
 price." 
 
 " Senor " Manuelo's tone was entreating, 
 supplicating, "I have come many miles to pur- 
 chase that basket. Three days have I travelled, 
 senor ! If you would but sell it "
 
 252 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 The stranger looked at him with new interest. 
 He noticed for the first time the haggard lines 
 of the young Mexican's face. 
 
 " Why do you come so far and take so much 
 trouble for this particular basket; there must 
 be thousands of others ? " he asked, with direct 
 and clear scrutiny. 
 
 " There are thousands of others, senor ; yes ! 
 but there is none other like this in all the 
 country." 
 
 The senor smiled a little triumphantly. 
 
 " In that case," said he, " you must under- 
 stand that, having been lucky enough to find 
 it, I may naturally wish to keep it. I am sorry 
 for you, my friend," he added, " sorry to be dis- 
 obliging, but I am a collector of beautiful things, 
 an artist, and this basket is, by your own admis- 
 sion, a treasure." He bowed, and made a step 
 to pass politely. But Manuelo laid a desperate 
 hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Senor," said he, " would no price tempt you ? 
 Would you not sell it even for a large, a very 
 large price ? " 
 
 The stranger smiled. " Why," said he, " I 
 don't say that. I dare say I might if the price 
 were large enough ; I am by no means a mil- 
 lionnaire."
 
 The Basket of Anita. 253 
 
 Manuelo drew himself up. " Senor," said he, 
 calmly, " I offer you twenty-five dollars." 
 
 The stranger started, and his eyes grew kindly, 
 almost compassionate in their gaze. " My poor 
 boy," said he, gently, " I could not take it 
 from you." 
 
 Manuelo'shead began to go round and round. 
 
 " Senor," said he, desperately, "you must 
 you will ! It is not from me ; it is it is from 
 a rich old Englishman, a madman for baskets. 
 He will pay any price ; he cares not what they 
 cost him, and he has set his heart upon this. 
 Twenty-five dollars is nothing to him nothing, 
 senor ! Look ! " He plunged his hand into his 
 pocket and brought it out full of loose gold and 
 silver. " This is all his, you may suppose, senor 
 it is not mine ! But the basket I pledged 
 myself. You will sell it, sefior ? for the love 
 of God ! There are reasons ! senor ! " 
 
 He stopped, and hung with all his soul upon 
 the moment's pause. A wild notion of offering 
 to throw in Lolita, too, flashed across him, but 
 he felt its untenableness in conjunction with the 
 Englishman. 
 
 Meanwhile the stranger looked doubtfully 
 from Manuelo to the basket. " There is some-
 
 254 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 thing which strikes me as odd about this 
 transaction," he thought to himself, quizzi- 
 cally, profoundly puzzled. " I am a tender- 
 foot, and, possibly, this is one of the customs 
 of this singular country. Still, to keep a 
 mounted Mexican curio-hunter scouting about 
 the country with unlimited credit no, cash 
 seems to me an unique luxury, even for a wealthy 
 ' Inglese.' However," he added to himself, tol- 
 erantly, " that 's none of my business, is it ? and 
 the boy's pride is evidently on the gut five to 
 secure this treasure. Shall I let him have it ? 
 He certainly would n't own that cash, or be so 
 free with it if he did. No doubt he gets his 
 little profit from it, so why should I scruple ? " 
 
 " Very well," he said at last, aloud, " since 
 you and your Englishman are in the majority, 
 I will part with the basket at that figure." 
 
 " Sefior ! mille gracias ! " Gratitude, the most 
 fervent and genuine gratitude spoke in the tones, 
 and the eloquent dark eyes. 
 
 " Decidedly," thought the sefior, " this 
 
 passes 
 
 i 
 
 Manuelo counted out the twenty-five dollars, 
 and offered it to the stranger, who was slow to 
 take it
 
 The Basket of Anita. 255 
 
 " You are sure," he said, " that you do not 
 repent; that you are not exceeding your En- 
 glishman's authority?" 
 
 " Senor sure ! " 
 
 The stranger unslung the basket and handed 
 it to Manuelo. " Adios, my friend," said he, 
 kindly. " I yield to you more than to the 
 Englishman's dollars." 
 
 Manuelo removed his sombrero, and stepped 
 aside to clear the path. Under one arm he 
 clasped the basket. 
 
 " Adios, senor," said he, courteously, his dark 
 eyes lit with joy, his whole face beaming. 
 
 With a parting smile the stranger disappeared 
 down the winding path, while Manuelo, his heart 
 singing within him, leading Lolita and bearing 
 the basket, went slowly up the mountain trail. 
 
 Three days afterward he entered the town of 
 San Miguel, dusty, travel-stained, and penni- 
 less, but with his mission accomplished. He 
 brought with him the basket of Anita. 
 
 He did not go at once to Las Delicias. Be- 
 ing a lover, he was fastidious. Being a Span- 
 iard, he was something of a poet ; and both 
 the lover and the poet in him dictated that a 
 victor should go not unadorned, bearing his
 
 256 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 spoils unto his lady. So he went straight to 
 the hut of old Pedro. 
 
 Pedro was out, which was an agreeable 
 omen at the outset. Having watered, fed, and 
 groomed Lolita, Manuelo entered the little 
 hut, washed away the dust of his six days' 
 ride, donned his fiesta suit, knotted the gayest 
 kerchief about his beautiful throat, and emerged 
 as gallant a cavalier as heart could wish. 
 
 Only he missed the guitar. But before his 
 eyes stood the basket. Smiling he caught it 
 up, and with the lightest heart resaddled the 
 refreshed Lolita, and rode straight to Las 
 Delicias. 
 
 It was evening. A superb southern moon 
 flooded the quiet town with such light as one 
 must go to California even to imagine. The 
 wide casements and windows at Las Delicias 
 all stood open, but there was no one on the 
 porch when Manuelo made his way up the path 
 with the basket in his hands. He looked inside. 
 Still no one. Perhaps, thought Manuelo, they 
 had strolled into the grove. He stood a mo- 
 ment, irresolute, beside the clump of over- 
 reaching laurestinas, when all at once voices 
 came to him, drifting across the still air from
 
 The Basket of Anita. 257 
 
 the lime-walks on the left; and at the same 
 moment they the voices emerged into the 
 moonlit space beyond. The mysterious silver 
 glow made them visible like figures in a dream. 
 Manuelo, sunk in the shadow, was in another 
 world. 
 
 Elsa's white dress brushed her companion 
 why not, since his arm was about her ? 
 and her sweet eyes were raised with infinite 
 contentment to the strong, loving ones looking 
 down at her. 
 
 " And so," said she, " all the time I have 
 been hard at work for you ; and while you 
 were tramping about in search of beautiful 
 scenes, I was hoarding beautiful things for 
 you. There will be enough to fill the studio." 
 
 " All of which," answered the mellow voice, 
 " was very naughty of you, my sweetheart ! 
 You were to do nothing but get well and strong 
 for me." 
 
 "Oh, but I did that too!" answered Elsa, 
 lightly. " So well and strong, all the time I 
 was riding and climbing, and hunting up treas- 
 ures. Only ask Manuelo." 
 
 "And who is Manuelo ? " 
 
 " Manuelo is Manuelo ! My devoted cava- 
 17
 
 258 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 Her, the dearest and most delightful fellow! He 
 has been better than the sun and air to me ; 
 and, dear, you will not mind that I gave him 
 my picture ? Aunt Mary said, under the 
 circumstances it was quite right. If I had not 
 been betrothed, of course, I would not have 
 done it. You are not displeased ? " 
 
 " Displeased ! my beloved ! Wait and see 
 how I shall thank him for being good to you ! " 
 
 " He has deserted us for some days, orange- 
 picking, I suppose, but you will see that he 
 never forgets me ; I am sure he will bring me 
 a basket when he comes." 
 
 " Then," said the mellow voice, between 
 mirth and regret, " I have lost my only chance 
 of outrivalling him in his own line. You should 
 have seen the basket I let slip through my hands 
 the other day, Elsa ! " 
 
 " Oh, Robert .' but why ? " 
 
 " Well, I had purchased it against my con- 
 science, to begin with, at the rate of fifteen 
 dollars; and it was a mighty one, a regular 
 elephant for a poor pedestrian who was fool- 
 ishly impatient to catch a certain train, in 
 order to reach a certain little sweetheart of his ! 
 However," lightly, "I dare say I should have
 
 The Basket of Anita. 259 
 
 hung on to the basket in spite of qualms of 
 conscience and legs, had I not encountered a 
 basket-hunter who was madder than I, and who 
 offered me the pretty sum of twenty-five dollars 
 for it." 
 
 " And you let it go oh ! " 
 
 "Well, my darling, he did want it so very 
 badly; and what right had an impecunious 
 artist to luxuries of that market-value? And 
 then I did not know you were smitten with the 
 basket craze, sweetheart, or I would have kept 
 the basket, and gone without say, coal." 
 
 But this mild sarcasm was thrown away. 
 Elsa, the basket-bewitched, was dreaming of 
 the lost one. 
 
 " What was it like ? " was her meditative and 
 irrelevant reply. 
 
 " Well," resignedly, " its majesty would stand, 
 I think, about three feet high. It was very 
 quaintly shaped. It was the finest I ever have 
 seen. There was a beguiling, mellow-brown 
 tone to the whole, which attested its honorable 
 age, and a most seductive pattern climbing 
 about its sides. But there was something more, 
 a gleam of scarlet about it which gave it 
 character."
 
 260 The Basket of Anita. 
 
 Elsa clasped her hands. "And you sold 
 it ! How could you ? Why, it is like the basket 
 of Anita!" 
 
 " Now, who in the name of reason is Anita? 
 Another of your attendant sprites ? " 
 
 "Anita is a mythical old woman who lives 
 on a mythical hill, and nurses a mythical basket, 
 visible only to the eyes of Manuelo, and 
 whose Doppelganger you sol " 
 
 " Sweetheart ! " 
 
 Two transfigured faces were uplifted in the 
 moonlight, and two pairs of lips melted together. 
 
 Perfectly unobserved, a shadow melted into 
 the shadows down the road. Unobserved, 
 Manuelo led Lolita out into the road and 
 leaped upon her back. He hesitated a mo- 
 ment, only a moment, then he turned her 
 head away from the old mission and Pedro, 
 and galloped straight into the open country, 
 toward the mines of Esperanza. 
 
 It was only an hour later that Elsa, running 
 up the steps with happy, unseeing eyes, stum- 
 bled over something, tripped, and would have 
 fallen headlong, but for the arms about her. 
 
 " Why ! what was that ? " exclaimed Elsa. 
 
 Her lover stooped, fumbled in the uncertain
 
 The Basket of Anita. 261 
 
 dusk until his hand encountered the object; 
 then he held it up in the moonlight. 
 
 There was an exclamation from both, then 
 silence. 
 
 They had recognized, at the same moment, 
 the upturned photograph in its depth, and the 
 scarlet gleam of woodpecker's feathers about 
 its rim. 
 
 It was the basket of Anita.
 
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