“Can you spin flax also, and weave linen?”
“Altro! “She lifted the cover of an old marriage-chest—it smelt of lavender.
“Behold my corredo.” The chest held the linen she had woven for her marriage,—towels, sheets, table-cloths, and napkins, enough to last her lifetime.
“See what Andrea sent me “for Natale” (Christmas). She took out of the cassone a pair of high-heeled, pointed-toed boots—they would have crippled her in a week—and a pair of American storm rubbers.
“The accursed ones of the Dogana forced me to pay three francs duty upon these original shoes; in confidence between us two, I cannot wear them.”
“The cioce are better for you. Where did these come from?”
“My husband, he sent them to me.”
“From Pittsbourgo?”
“’Gnor, si, he is a cutter of stone at that place.”
“Why are you not with him?”