Altogether, therefore, the poor Don’s expeditions were not very successful, and on this particular morning he was feeling a little dejected in spite of his cheerful looks. But the mule stopped at the shop, and as Lucia sprang lightly down, he went forward with a smiling greeting to help her unfasten the heavy baskets.
“Are you quite well, Don Ernano?” asked Lucia, looking up at him with her deep brown eyes. Then, as the giant blushed and turned away to hide his confusion, she added, quickly, for she pitied him for his shyness, “Here are the onions you wanted; beautiful large ones, aren’t they? but can you use so many?”
Don Ernano had apparently not quite recovered his composure, for he pulled his ear for a moment or two without speaking, and then said slowly, “I could use them all, certainly, but—well—the fact is, signorina, I haven’t much ready money just now.”
“Ah! I know,”said Lucia, calmly; “Don Ernano has been out shooting again.”
“The signorina knows?”said Don Ernano, looking at the beautiful girl in amazement.
“Yes, I know, and I have been thinking why it is that you don’t get rich,” pursued Lucia, without a trace of coquetry in her manner. “You are clever and handy, you don’t gamble and you don’t drink; why, you might be the foremost man in the town, and yet you don’t get a step farther. I have come to the conclusion that it is the shooting which is at the bottom of it.”
Don Ernano gazed more and more earnestly at the girl as she spoke, and the sympathy which he read in her face went to his very heart. But he only pulled his ear again, and said rather sheepishly, “The signorina may be right, but it is the only pleasure I have in the world. What am I to do? It is so dreary at home, and sometimes I get bored almost to death.”
“Ah! you ought to marry, Don Ernano,”said Lucia, simply, still busying herself with the onions. “If you had a wife you would have a real home and some one to work for.”
“Yes,”returned the light-haired giant, “marry! it is easy to say, but who would have me, a penniless foreigner? I have thought about it now and then; but it is a hard matter for a man like me to get a good wife.”
“I should not think that,”said Lucia, reflectively, looking at him again as she spoke, for they were old acquaintances these two, and on intimate terms—“I should not think that. You see I have known you ever since I was a little girl, and I know you are good and clever. I dare say, the truth is you like your liberty.”