‘Orsù,’ begins the little man sharply. ‘Haste with your business, girls, for I have much to do and little time to waste.’
‘And it is perhaps necessary that your honour remain here to spy upon us,’ retorts the foremost of the maidens, pertly? ‘We are fairly capable of setting in order the church, and you may return to the fields.’
The little priest laughs. He knows that he is not much beloved among the neighbours, but the speaker is a pretty girl among her set, and the Cappellano would fain be a favourite. He walks around, making a few haphazard remarks, that are received with about as much scorn as the feeble suggestions of an English curate who comes in among the squire’s daughters in the midst of decorations. He is soon out again in the hot daylight.
BIANCA DECORATES THE ALTAR AND SNUBS THE UNDER-PRIEST.
‘The good-for-nothing meddler!’ ejaculates she fervently who has spoken before. ‘It seems impossible he should not have understood by this time that I will have none of his impertinence!’ and she laughs a loud laugh, in which the others join also, furtively glancing at one another and then giggling afresh.
‘Say on, Bianca, and tell us a little news,’ they plead. And the request is readily complied with, for Bianca is the bold and adventurous spirit of the village, and has always some tale on hand which she loves to pass on amongst the quieter of her companions. The damsel is a proud and powerful woman; she has taken her stand long since in their midst, and, before her face at all events, the rest of the flock is tacitly content to submit to her sway.
She stands now upon the altar steps as she begins her story—a fine and goodly figure. Through the soft texture of her blue homespun, likely enough her only garment, one can clearly see the curves of her large and shapely form. Her bare feet rest freely upon the cool marble; one of her bare arms, from whence sleeves are tucked away, is stretched on high to fix a garland around the reredos, the other—curved and rounded beautifully—selects flowers from the basket at her side. Firm and graceful are the poses into which her figure is thrown as she moves and stands and stoops in the various requirements of her task. Bianca is no wondrous beauty; she has the heavy features and the sallow complexion of her race—she is but a fair sample of our Apennine contadina, only a woman with dark and fervid eyes, with masses of coarse and glossy hair; yet she has a fairness of form and a perfection of graceful strength, that we may not look to find elsewhere, as we find it at every turn amongst the North Italian peasants.
‘Well, girls,’ says she, and her voice sounds clear above the noise of the bells, ‘you must know that I’ve had an adventure—a fine and a merry one, too, and, what’s more, it’s the son of the sindaco that I have to thank for it.’