Pipa cannot bear to think that Enrica never dressed for her betrothed. "Poverina!" she says to her, "not dress—not dress! What degradation! Why, when the Gobbina—a little starved hump-backed bastard—married the blind beggar Gianni at Corellia, for the sake of the pence he got sitting all day shaking his box by the café—even the Gobbina had a white dress and a wreath—and you, beloved lady, not so much as to care to change your clothes! What must the Signore Conte have thought? Misera mia! We must all seem pagans to him!" And Pipa's heart smote her sorely, remembering the notes. "Caro Gesù! When you are to be married we must find you something to wear. To be sure, the marchesa's luggage was chiefly burnt in the fire, but one box is left. Out of that box something will come," Pipa feels sure (miracles are nothing to Pipa, who believes in pilgrimages and the evil-eye); she feels sure that it will be so. After much talk with Enrica, who only answers her with a smile, and says absently, looking at the mountains which she does not see—
"Dear Pipa, we will look in the box, as you say."
"But when, signorina?" insists Pipa, and she kisses Enrica's hand, and strokes her dress. "But when?"
"To-morrow," says Enrica, absently. "To-morrow, dear Pipa, not to-day."
"Holy mother!" is Pipa's reply, "it has been 'to-morrow' for four days." "Always to-morrow," mutters Pipa to herself, as she makes the dust fly with her broom; "and the Signore Conte is to return in a week! Always to-morrow. What can I do? Such a disgrace was never known. No bridal dress. No veil. The signorina is too young to understand such things, and the marchesa is not like other ladies, or one might venture to speak to her about it. She would only give me 'accidenti' if I did, and that is so unlucky! To-morrow I must make the signorina search that box. There will be a white dress and a veil. I dreamed so. Good dreams come from heaven. I have had a candle lighted for luck before the Santissima in the market-place, and fresh flowers put into the pots. There will be sure to be a white dress and a veil—the saints will send them to the signorina."
Pipa sweeps and sings. Her children, Angelo and Gigi, are roasting chestnuts under the window outside.
This time she sings a nursery rhyme:
"Little Trot, that trots so gayly,
And without legs can walk so bravely!
Trottolin! Trottolino!—
Via! via!"
Pipa, in her motherly heart looking out, blesses little Gigi—a chubby child blackened by the sun—to see him sitting so meek and good beside his brother. Angelo is a naughty boy. Pipa does not love him so well as Gigi. Perhaps this is the reason Angelo is so ill-furnished in point of clothes. His patched and ragged trousers are hitched on with a piece of string. Shirt he has none; only a little dingy waistcoat buttoned over his chest, on which lies a silver medal of the Madonna. Angelo's arms are bare, his face mahogany-color, his head a hopeless tangle of colorless hair. But Angelo has a pair of eyes that dance, and a broad, red-lipped mouth, out of which two rows of white teeth shine like pearls. Angelo has just burnt his fingers picking a chestnut out of the ashes. He turns very red, but he is too proud to cry. Angelo's hands and feet are so hard he does not feel the pointed rocks that break the turf in the forest, nor does he fear the young snakes, as plenty as lizards, in the warm nooks. All yesterday Angelo had run up and down to look for chestnuts, on his naked feet. He dared not mount into the trees, for that would be stealing; but he leaped, and skipped, and slid when a russet-coated chestnut caught his eye. Gigi was with him, trusted to his care by Pipa, with many abjurations and terrible threats of future punishment should he ill-use him.
Ah! if Pipa knew!—if Pipa had only seen little Gigi lonely in the woods, and heard his roars for help! Angelo, having found Gigi troublesome, had tied him by a twisted cord of grass to the trunk of an ancient chestnut. Gigi was trepanned into this thralldom by a heap of flowers artful Angelo had brought him—purple crocuses and cyclamens, and Canterbury bells, and gaudy pea-stalks, all thrown before the child. Gigi, in his little torn petticoat, had swallowed the bait, and flung himself upon the bright blossoms, grasping them in his dirty fingers. Presently the delighted babe turned his eyes upon cunning Angelo standing behind him, showing his white teeth. Satisfied that Angelo was there, Gigi buried himself among the flowers. He crowed to them in his baby way, and flung them here and there. Gigi would run and catch them, too; but suddenly he felt something which stopped him. It was a grass cord which Angelo had secretly woven standing behind Gigi—then had made it fast round Gigi's waist and knotted it to a tree. A cloud came over Gigi's jolly little face—a momentary cloud—when he found he could not run after the flowers. But it soon passed away, and he squatted down upon the grass (the inveigled child), and again clutched the tempting blossoms. Then his little eyes peered round for Angelo to play with him. Alas!—Angelo was gone!