The girls said nothing; they looked at each other: from the start the thing was going badly.
Caterina, as she took no interest in the subject now, cut the tacking with a pair of scissors, where it had been already stitched, which covered her maroon bodice with white threads.
'Have you lost your tongues? What is it about?' Donna Concetta asked, laughing.
'Well, now I will tell you, ma'am,' the blonde began, biting her lips to make them red. 'I would like a new dress for Easter, a pair of boots, and cotton to make three or four chemises. If I was frugal, and made them myself, after my day's work is done, forty francs would do. I have not got it; it would take a year to save it. Knowing you are good and kind to poor folk, I had an idea you might lend me these forty francs.'
'It was not a good idea of yours,' said the money-lender freezingly.
'Why? I can pay off the debt at so much a week. I earn twenty-five sous a day; I don't owe a penny to anyone. Ask Nannina; she is my guarantee.'
'Nannina ought to find a security for herself,' Donna Concetta grumbled. 'But why do you need this dress? Is what you have on not enough? If one has no money, get no dresses. When my sister and I had no means, we got no clothes. You are all mad, you girls, nowadays!'
'Aunt, aunt, do her this favour; she has a lover, and she is ashamed to go ill-dressed,' the niece begged for her friend.
'I have had a lover too,' Donna Concetta answered; 'he was not ashamed when I was ill-dressed.'
'Men nowadays are quite different,' Antonietta murmured. 'So do me this favour.'