The next moment, however, her face resumed its ordinary expression, and she said, "I spoke foolishly. I should have told you, the babe's father died on the day that she was born. The mother never held her head up after; and she kept her word with me too truly; for scarcely four months were gone by, ere we laid her in Campo Santo."
"Poor thing!" said Austin Jute, in so natural a tone of pity, that all remains of anger were banished from Tita's heart. "How did the lady's husband die? Was it in battle or of disease?"
"By the axe, young man--by the axe," replied Tita, sharply; "a plaything with which people in your country sport even more than we do here in Italy--at least I have heard so; for I know nothing of any other land but my own; but I have heard the Signor say that there has been sufficient innocent blood shed upon the scaffold in England and Scotland to bring down a curse upon the country."
"Upon my life, he said true," replied Austin Jute; "for I have seen a few heads roll in my own day, and have always thought it a pity that people cannot find some other means of putting those out of the way who stand in their light, but by cutting them on the back of the neck. Were men's heads no better than turnips, we could not treat them more carelessly than we do in our little island. Poor child, her misfortunes came early; and I hope and trust that she got over them all at once. People must eat black bread, they say, at one time of their life; and it is better to swallow it before we have tasted any other, than to eat the white bread first, and then have the other after."
"God send that it be so with her," said the old woman, "for a dearer, sweeter girl never lived."
"And, after all, what is her name?" said Austin Jute, in that quiet sort of easy tone which so often leads on confidence; but good old Tita answered quietly, with a shrewd glance of the eye, "Julia, to be sure--the Lady Julia. That has been enough for me all my life; and it should be enough for you too, I think."
"Enough is as good as a feast," answered Austin Jute; but as he saw he could gain no more information he dropped the subject, and began to wonder at the length of his lord's visit.
CHAPTER V.
"It is done," said the earl, "and, I think, accurately."
The old man bent over the paper, and examined every line. "Saturn is wanting in the third house," he replied; "and you have left out the sextile there."