At the end of this time, a faint light appeared through the crack of the door, which was gently pushed open, and then appeared her mother holding a lamp and followed by Pietro Antonio, who had a large pair of vine-shears in his hand.
As they entered, Lucia suddenly advanced from her corner with the axe uplifted. “Come here, you coward, if you dare,” she cried to the young man, who stood there speechless, motionless, and as white as death from surprise and fright.
He looked at the pale-faced girl, looked at the uplifted axe and her strong arms, and slowly moved away without uttering a word, followed by the old woman, who was shaking all over to such a degree that she could hardly stand, while her teeth chattered loud enough to be heard.
They were gone! and all was still again; but Lucia spent the rest of the night sitting on the bed-side, with her beautiful head resting against the hard cold stone wall, without venturing to close her eyes. In the morning she neither spoke to her mother nor prepared the breakfast as was her custom, and kept her mouth more tightly closed than ever.
When she had washed and dressed, and plaited her hair more carefully than usual, she brought out the mule, saddled and bridled him; but to her mother’s immense astonishment, instead of proceeding to load him with vegetables, she just mounted and rode away in the direction of Palene.
The mule trotted along merrily and quickly, but as it was still very early, Lucia stopped him after a while and allowed him to graze, while she got down and lay on the grass, resting her weary head on her hand and gazing into the distance with her large brown eyes. Little by little her pale face brightened, and began to lose the hard look it had worn since the previous night. She even began to smile a little and looked almost happy. At last some pleasant thought seemed to strike her, for she actually laughed and blushed, and then getting up and calling her mule, she went on her way.
In little more than half an hour she was again standing before Don Ernano’s shop in the market-place.
“Ah, signorina, you are early indeed to-day,” he began; then glancing at the unloaded mule, he went on, “you want the onions back, no doubt? I was afraid Mother Ceprano——”
“I did not come about that,”replied Lucia abruptly, with an odd shy smile. “I came to-day to ask your services as hair-dresser; you cut and dress hair, I know. Will you be so good as to cut off my hair?”
“What, signorina!”cried the horrified barber, “cut off your beautiful hair! No, you don’t mean it, I couldn’t have the heart!”