“I leave the Mangiacarubbe for Rocco Spatu. I have other things in my mind.”
“Who knows what you have in your mind—those pretty girls in foreign parts, perhaps?”
“There are pretty girls here, too, Cousin Barbara, and I know one very well.”
“Really?”
“By my soul!”
“What do you care?”
“I care! Yes, that I do; but she doesn’t care for me, because there are certain dandies who walk under her window with varnished boots.”
“I don’t even look at those varnished boots, by the Madonna of Ognino! Mamma says that varnished boots are only fit to devour the dowry and everything else; and some fine day I shall go out with my distaff, and make him a scene, that Don Silvestro, who won’t leave me in peace.”
“Do you mean that seriously, Cousin Barbara?”
“Yes, indeed I do!”