“And you were doing your good work, fasting, while I feasted. It was all tempting, but I was puzzled how to eat my egg; there were no spoons.”
“Why not ask for one; you were talking French? Had you been attempting Italian, you might have stuck fast. Cucchiaio is one of the most uncouth words in that beautiful language. Well I remember it being one of the first I had to pronounce, when, in early days, I got out of the line of French garçons: cuc—cucchi,—give me our Anglo-Saxon monosyllables for such things as spoons, knives, and forks,—at last I blurted out cucchiaio, in all its quadrosyllabic fulness. The Rubicon was passed (by the way, it was on the carte of my route); after that I stuck at nothing, though for some time it was the lingua Toscana—in bocca—Inglese.—But how did you manage your egg?”
“Why, it is good manners, you know, to do at Rome as others do, so I watched the priest. He removed the top, as we do, and then very nicely sipped the contents of the shell, which—charming Graziella! excellent duenna!—were done to a turn, just creamy.”
“Ah! I perceive it was suction, a primitive idea, when spoons were not. Now I understand the old proverb about not teaching our venerable progenitors ‘to suck eggs.’”
“Old fellow, cease your banter, or I shall never get to the end of my story. As to the eggs, I did not manage mine as cleverly as the priest did his. I made a mess of it, bestowing good part of the yolk on my moustache, much to Graziella's amusement. I perceived she could hardly refrain from tittering. But she was soon sobered,—the conversation turning on the last days of Corsica—and tears came in her eyes. Alas! the ruthless spirit of vendetta in this wild country had cost her the lives of her father and brothers; and, her mother being dead, she was left an orphan under the care of the good priest.”
“‘Uncle, persuade him to stay, if only for another hour. I should like to hear more of those countries where there is no vendetta; where they plough and reap and dwell in safety; where fathers and brothers are not compelled to flee from their villages to the wild máquis and the mountain crags.’
“‘My pretty child, I cannot stay now. Perhaps some day I may return.’
“‘Addio! then. Evviva! Evviva! In two years I shall be grown up, and uncle will no longer call me child, and you shall tell me more of lands I shall never see. But ah! I know it will never be. Bon voyage! Forget not the priest's home among the mountains of Corsica.’
“I shall not forget it. How often one says hopefully ‘I will come back,’ when it would be idle ever to expect it; and yet I would wish to see once more the little girl who said, ‘Come, if it is but for an hour!’
“I rushed down the mountain side, and found you scorched with a burning sun, thirsty, breakfastless,—the very image of the knight of the woeful countenance,—I all joy and fun with my morning's adventure, you perplexed, out of patience, hungry, and tired. I cannot help laughing at the contrast.”