Donna Isabella Sertale, nicknamed “The Cat,” who had the stealthy, furtive movements of a beast of prey, called in a twanging voice, “Who has been with you this long time, Donna Cristina? It seems to me that I have seen Candia come and go.”
“A-a-a-h!” exclaimed Donna Felicetta Margasanta, called “The Magpipe,” because of her everlasting garrulity.
“Ah!” the other neighbours repeated in turn.
“And you had not thought of her?”
“And did you not observe her?”
“And don’t you know of what metal Candia is made?”
“We would do well to tell you of her!”
“That we would!”
“We would do well to tell you!”
“She washes the clothes in goodly fashion, there is none to dispute that. She is the best laundress that dwells in Pescara, one cannot help saying that. But she holds a defect in her five fingers. Did you not know that, now?”