‘Clap that velvet cap on thy head, boy, and let’s see what thou lookest like,’ cried she, handing Gerald a velvet hat, looped up in front, and ornamented with an ostrich feather.
‘What for?’ cried he rudely; ‘I am no mountebank.’ And then, as he caught Marietta’s eyes, a deep blush burned all over his face, and he said, in a voice of shame, ‘To be sure! Anything you like. I’ll wear this too,’ and he snatched up a tawdry mantle and threw it over his shoulders.
‘Come e bellino!’ said Marietta, as she clasped her hands across her bosom, and gazed on him in a sort of rapture. ‘He’s like Paolo in the Francesca,’ muttered she.
‘He’ll never be Chico,’ growled out the hag. ‘Birbante that he was, who ‘ll ever jump through nine hoops with A lighted taper in his hand? Oh, Assassino! it won’t serve you now!’
‘Do you know Paolo’s speech?’ whispered Marietta.
‘No,’ said he, blushing, half angry, half ashamed.
‘Then I ‘ll teach it to you.’
‘Thou shouldst have been an acolyte at San Giovanni di Laterano when the Pope says the high mass, boy,’ cried Babbo enthusiastically. ‘Thy figure and face would well become the beauteous spectacle.’
‘Does not that suit him?’ cried the girl, as she replaced the hat by a round cap, such as pages wear, with a single eagle’s feather. ‘Does not that become him?’
‘Who cares for looks?’ muttered the hag. ‘Chico was ugly enough to bring bad luck; and when shall we see his like again?’