"Hadn't we better walk, Pasotti?" groaned the plaintive voice. "Let us walk!"
Pasotti continued to abuse the boatman, who was hastily unfastening the chain of his boat from a ring, fixed in the bank. Presently he turned towards the portico, with an authoritative air, and jerking his chin, motioned to some one to come forward.
"Let us walk, Pasotti!" the voice groaned once more.
He shrugged his shoulders, made a rough gesture of command with his hand, and started down towards the boat.
Then an old lady appeared under one of the arches of the portico, her lean person enveloped in an Indian shawl, below which a black silk skirt showed. Her head was surmounted by a fashionable bonnet, spindling, and lofty, trimmed with tiny yellow roses, and black lace. Two black curls framed the wrinkled face; the eyes were large and gentle, and the wide mouth was shaded by a faint moustache.
"Oh Pin!" she exclaimed, clasping her canary-coloured gloves, and pausing on the bank to gaze helplessly at the boatman. "Can we really venture out with the lake in this state?"
Her husband made a still more imperious gesture, and his face assumed a still sourer expression. The poor woman slipped down to the boat in silence, and was helped in, trembling violently.
"I commend myself to Our Lady of Caravino, my good Pin!" she said. "What a dreadful lake!"
The boatman shook his head, smiling.
"By the way!" Pasotti exclaimed, "have you brought the sail along?"