The Priest's Servant Administers a Reproof.
"Presently Caterina bustles into the darkened parlour, where sits the prevosto lazily smoking his pipe and reading the country newspaper. He has put aside even the least of his clerical garments now, and lounges at ease in an old coat and slippers, his tonsured head covered by a battered straw hat.
"'Listen to me,' breaks forth the faithful woman, and she is not careful to modulate her voice even to a semblance of secrecy, 'you don't bring another mouth for me to feed here when it is baking day again. Per Bacco, no indeed!... It sha'n't happen again, do you hear? And I have the holy wafers to bake besides. For shame of you! Come now to your dinner in the kitchen!' And Caterina, the better for this free expression, hastens to dish up the minestra.
"'Poor old priest! What a shrew he has got in his house,' says some pitying reader. Yet he would not part with her for worlds! She is his solace and his right hand, and loves him none the less because of her sharp tongue and uncurbed speech. In many a lone and cheerless home of Italian priest can I call to mind such a woman as this—such a fond and faithful drudge, with harsh ways and a soft heart."
Another picture in North Italian Folk seems to give the character of the peasantry and the scenery exactly. "The sun glitters on the pale sea that is down and away a mile or more beyond the sloping fields and gardens, and the dipping valley. Giovanni pauses to rest his burthen upon the wall just where the way turns to the right again, leaving the mountains and chestnut-clad hills behind it."
The Husbandman.