"Benone, here is the book," and she pulled a ragged volume out from under the counter and held it close to the light. "I will find them for you. Here is the place. Garofolo, 81, you had better write it down." Rinaldo gravely produced a pencil and scribbled on his cuff. "Now," she went on, "what is the second object?"
"I will have another flower," he said, "a geranium leaf blew on to my loggia this morning. Can you find the number for that?"
"Oh yes, here it is on the same page—geranium, 29—odd numbers both. You will draw something, signorino."
"That which is to be, will be," he replied, "but has this one a bad meaning? That might bring me ill-luck."
Sora Amalia turned to an index at the end of the worn evangel of fortune and ran her finger down a list. "I don't know that you would call it bad exactly," she informed him, "but to me it smells of misfortune. 'Constancy under suffering.'"
"Madonna mia!" cried the young man with such distress in his voice that the woman looked up in surprise. He had changed color and was leaning heavily with both hands on the counter. His adviser hastened to comfort him.
"Come! come," she said soothingly, "do not let yourself be agitated. We will choose something else for you. Sora Rosa's chair broke down with her this morning and she went plump into a basket of cherries. A marmalade it was, when she got up! I will find the number for chair."
"No, no, I will not play in the lottery this week, Sora Amalia," and Rinaldo drew the book from her hand. "Listen, there is something else I want to ask you. Did Sora Mariuccia come in this morning? I am wondering whether she got the fruit I told my vignarolo to take her yesterday. That poor man is of a stupidity sometimes."
"She said nothing about it to me," replied Sora Amalia, falling into the trap at once; "she seemed in a great hurry and pretty cross too. I asked her what was the matter, and she said Giannella was ill—oh, nothing serious, just the effect of the scirocco. Do not alarm yourself, signorino. Listen to a fool and I will tell you something." She leaned over and whispered in his ear, "It is probably a disease of the heart, and there is an easy remedy for it."
She looked so serious that Rinaldo caught her hand and cried: