After a pause. "As you came across the beach, they called after you, 'Good day, La Rabbiata.' Why do they call you so? It is not a pretty name for a Christian girl, who ought to be humble and gentle."
The girl's brown face glowed, and her eyes sparkled.
"They laugh at me, because I will not dance and sing and gossip, like the others. They might let me go my own way. I do them no harm."
"But you might be friendly with every one. Others, who lead easier lives may dance and sing; but kindly words may be given even by a sorrowful heart."
She looked steadily down, and drew the black eyebrows still closer together, as if she wished to shroud the dark eyes entirely under them. For a while they, voyaged on in silence. The sun now stood glorious over the mountains. The peak of Vesuvius ranged high over the bank of mist which still wrapped its flanks, and the houses on the plains of Lorento gleamed whitely from amongst the green orange gardens.
"Have you never heard any thing more of that painter, Lauretta," asked the padre, "that Neapolitan, who wanted to marry you?"
She shook her head.
"He wanted to paint your picture--why did you drive him away?"
"Why did he want it? There are plenty prettier than I. And then, who knows what he might have done with it? He might have bewitched me with it, and endangered my soul, or even have killed me, my mother says."
"Don't believe such wicked things," said the padre, gravely, "Are you not always in the hand of God, without whose permission not a hair can fall from your head? And do you think that a man with a poor picture like that can be stronger than the Lord God? You might have seen that he wished you well. Would he have wanted you to marry him if he had not?"