It was a little song of flowers and sunshine that Eve began to carol over the carolling keys; the words fell into the sweetness of the air, that seemed laden with the morning murmur of bees and blossoms; it was but a verse or two, with a refrain that went repeating all the honeyed burden, till Luigi's face fairly burned with pleasure, where he stood at timid distance in the doorway.
"Ciò mi fa bene! That does me good!" cried he, as she rose. "Ah, Signorina, I am happy here!"
Then he turned and found the elder lady counting out his money. He received the seven shillings quietly, as his due; but when she would have paid him for the cherub, he pushed the silver swiftly back.
"It is a gift!" said he, with spirit.
"No, no," said Eve. "I should like it, but I must pay for it. You will be so kind as to take the price?" she asked, her hand extended, and a winning grace irradiating all her changing rosy countenance.
A shadow fell over the boy's face, like that of a cloud skimming down a sunny landscape.
"A Lei non posso dar un rifiuto," said he, meeting her shining eyes; and he gravely gathered the money and slung his tray.
As he raised it, Eve laid along its side a branch of unsullied day-lilies that had been filling the room with their heavy fragrance. The image-boy interested her; he was a visible creature of those foreign fairy-shores of which she had dreamed; that she did anything but show kindness to a vagrant whom she would not see again never crossed her mind; perhaps, too, she liked that Italy, in his person, should admire her,—that was pardonable. But, at the action, the shadow swept away from the boy's face again, all his lights and darks came flashing out, eyes and teeth and color sparkling in his smile, like sunshine after rain; he made his low obeisance, poised the tray upon his head, and, with a wave of his hand, went out.
"A rivederla!" he called back to her from the door, and was gone.