"The spring is always her worst time, ever since those last great storms, and the earthquakes, she has been forced to keep her bed from pain."
"Pray, my child. Never grow slack of prayers and petitions, that the blessed Virgin may intercede for you; and be industrious and good, that your prayers may find a hearing."
After a pause; "When you were coming toward the shore, I heard them calling after you: 'Good morning, l'Arrabiata!' they said, what made them call you so? it is not a nice name for a young Christian maiden, who should be meek and mild."
The young girl's brown face glowed all over, while her eyes flashed fire.
"They always mock me so, because I do not dance and sing, and stand about to chatter, as other girls do. I might be left in peace, I think; I do them no harm."
"Nay, but you might be civil. Let others dance and sing, on whom this life sits lighter, but a kind word now and then, is seemly even from the most afflicted."
Her dark eyes fell, and she drew her eyebrows closer over them, as if she would have hidden them.
They went on a while in silence. The sun now stood resplendent above the mountain chain; only the tip of mount Vesuvius towered beyond the group of clouds that had gathered about its base. And on the Sorrento plains, the houses were gleaming white from the dark green of their orange-gardens.
"Have you heard no more of that painter, Laurella?" asked the curato; "that Neapolitan, who wished so much to marry you?" She shook her head. "He came to make a picture of you. Why would you not let him?"
"What did he want it for? there are handsomer girls than I;--who knows what he would have done with it?--he might have bewitched me with it, or hurt my soul, or even killed me, mother says."