“If you know so much, then stop talking, for my father will soon be here, and I don’t care to have him catch me in the courtyard.”
The father began to make a wry face, but the girl pretended not to notice, for the tassel of the rifleman’s hat had set her heart-strings quivering and was forever dancing before her eyes. After the father had put Turridu out of the door, the daughter opened her window to him, and would stand chatting with him all the evening, until the whole neighborhood could talk of nothing else.
“I am crazy about you,” Turridu would say; “I am losing my sleep and my appetite.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“I wish I was the son of Victor Emanuel, so that I could marry you!”
“I don’t believe it!”
“By our Lady, I could eat you up, like a piece of cake!”
“I don’t believe it!”
“On my honor!”
“Oh, mother mine!”