Whereupon Carmela, demurely bending her head over her work, replied:
"Go on, Cesare, and be easy. Carmela comes from good stock."
She was from the same stock as her brother, at any rate, for she added, in exactly the same tone as that in which Don Cesare has whispered to the saint:
"That Nino shall marry Carmela and none other will scarcely be accomplished by your aid, Cesare. I must see to that."
Her eyes sparkled over her work, as if she knew very well indeed what she was thinking about. And she did, too, the petite witch, with the fine finger tips, and the raven black curly hair; for her brother was no sooner out of the house than she sprang up lightly, ran to the door, drew the bolt, and then stepped softly, softly, to a window that opened on the street, stuck her little head through a narrow opening, and looked quietly after Don Cesare for a while, then, when she had seen him disappear through the darkness in the direction of Salvatore's house, she threw the window wide open, leaned out, laid her right hand above her eyes, and gazed steadily in the opposite direction, as if searching for something in the thick gloom. She found what she was looking for very soon. It appeared in the shape of a young, slender man, who kept himself in the shadow of the houses, cautiously and noiselessly approached the window, and suddenly stood before her, grasping her hands in his, and whispering:
"I have waited long. I have kept my word. Will you keep yours, Carmela?"
Cesare's small house lay at the outermost end of a little street that led to the harbor. Whoever came up that way was certain not to be seen by any one, and that was exactly the way the young man had come. The night was dark. The moon was yet far below the horizon. It was easy to chat quietly and unobserved between window and street, and this the two did. They were far past the rudimentary stage of love-making, for Carmela promptly resigned her hand to the caresses of Nino, who confidently pressed upon it a long, passionate kiss.
"Only come this evening with me to my Casina," he whispered; "we can be alone there, and we can't go on forever talking from window to street like this."
Carmela smiled under cover of the night.
"It is so far," said she; "if my brother should come back before I"--