'But what wanted you of my mother?' he persisted.
'They said she knew strange things,' said the girl evasively.
'If she did she had little profit of them,' said Caris sadly.
The girl looked at him with great persuasiveness in her face, and leaned a little nearer to him.
'You did not really bury the charms with her? You have got them inside? You will let me see them, eh?'
'As the saints live, I buried them,' said Caris truthfully; 'they were rubbish, or worse; accursed maybe. They are safe down in the ground till the Last Day. What can such a bright wench as yourself want with such queer, unhallowed notions?'
The girl Santina glanced over her shoulders to make sure that no one was listening; then she said in a whisper:
'There is the Gobbo's treasure in these woods somewhere—and Lisabetta had the wand that finds gold and silver.'
Caris burst into a loud laugh.
'Ah, truly! That is a good jest. If she could find gold and silver, why did we always have iron spoons for our soup, and a gnawing imp in our stomachs? Go to, my maiden. Do not tell such tales. Lisabetta was a poor and hungry woman all her days, and scarce left enough linen to lay her out in decently, so help me Heaven!'