“Apportez moi some acqua!” said her mistress distinctly and authoritatively.
The donna shrank back. “Signorina mia,” she began pitifully.
“Don't talk!” cried the young lady. “What is the use of your talking to me when I cannot understand a word you say? It is too absurd. Besides, it is the servant's place to obey without speaking. Bianca, do look in the dictionary for the Italian for wish or will, the strongest word you can get; then in the grammar for the first person, singular, indicative of it—or, no, the imperative. And be quick, or I never shall get out. Voglio? Angelina, I voglio a pitcher of acqua—what is the word for quickly? Vitement? No. That isn't Italian. It must be vita. That is an Italian word, I know, and it sounds as if it meant quickly. Angelina, I voglio acqua vita.”
“Si, si, signorina!” exclaimed the poor little donna, and ran off, glad to get out of the room.
“And, after all, she hasn't taken the pitcher,” said Isabel. “But may be she will bring a pailful. She knew quite well that I was finding fault because we have so little. They understand what we say, I'm sure they do. Their ignorance is all a pretence.”
Five minutes passed, and ten minutes; and when the young lady had exhausted herself in impatient exclamations, Angelina entered the chamber, all out of breath, but smiling in confident triumph, and placed in her hand a bottle on which was an apothecary's label with acquavite neatly inscribed on it.
There was a bersagliere passing the house at that moment; and I have always thought I would like to know [pg 661] if he ever suspected that the hand of a papalina flung that bottle which alighted safely on the great tuft of flying feathers in his hat. I am sure that if the bottle had contained anything but acquavite, the military would have been called out.
This feat accomplished, Miss Isabel seized the empty water-pitcher, and thrust it into the hands of the frightened girl with one word, “Acqua!” uttered in a tone which proved her to have tragical abilities.
Angelina returned in a trice with the water, and found her mistress standing in the middle of the room, with a stern countenance, and a dictionary in her hand.
“Now, nero my guadagno.”