In a vineyard below a girl working among the orange trees was singing stornelli. It was a song of a mother to her son. He had gone away from the old roof-tree, but he would come back some day. His new home was bright and big, but the old hearthstone would draw him home. Beautiful ladies loved him, but the white-haired mother would kiss him again.
They listened for a short dreaming space, and their laughter ceased and their eyes grew moist. Then they called for the bill, and the old man with the evil face came up with a forced smile from a bank that had clearly no assets of that kind to draw upon.
"You've been a long time in this house, landlord," said David Rossi.
"Very long time, Excellency," said the man.
"You came from the Ciociaria."
"Why, yes, I did," said the man, with a look of surprise. "I was poor then, and later on I lived in the caves and grottoes of Monte Parioli."
"But you knew how to cure the phylloxera in the vines, and when your master died you married his daughter and came into his vineyard."
"Angelica! Here's a gentleman who knows all about us," said the old man, and then, grinning from ear to ear, he added:
"Perhaps your Excellency was the young gentleman who used to visit with his father at the Count's palace on the hill twenty to thirty years ago?"
David Rossi looked him steadfastly in the face and said: "Do you remember the poor boy who lived with you at that time?"