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"Have you seen him before?" "But yes, thousands of times," said Assunta in a stage whisper. "See, he comes. I thought it best to say that he would find the Signorina in the garden. And the Signorina must pardon me for the card: I dropped it into the tea-kettle and it is wet, quite wet."
Luttrell, on calling at the cottage as usual, noticed that Vincenza's eyes were red, and her manner odd and abrupt. Old Assunta was there, with the baby upon her knee. Mr. Luttrell asked what was the matter. Vincenza turned away and burst into tears. "She has lost her baby, signor," the old woman explained. "The little one died last night at the village, and Vincenza could not see it.
The boy triumphed, and this victory rendered him so audacious, that all the money of Assunta, whose affection for him seemed to increase as he became more unworthy of it, was spent in caprices she knew not how to contend against, and follies she had not the courage to prevent.
"But the Contessa would die of shame!" asserted Assunta, rising with bits of dirt clinging to her apron, and gesticulating with the knife. "It would be a scandal, and all the pickers would say, 'Behold the mad English-Woman!" She looked up beseechingly at her mistress. She and Giacomo never could tell beforehand which sentences the Signorina was going to understand.
Assunta and I raised her up gently and supported her against her pillows; the agony passed slowly, but left her little face white and rigid, while large drops of sweat gathered on her brow. I endeavored to soothe her. "Darling, you must not talk," I whispered, imploringly; "try to be very still then the poor throat will not ache so much." She looked at me wistfully.
Then you enter the Chiesina, the first little church of the Mountain that St. Francis may have built with his own hands, and that S. Bonaventura certainly enlarged; and thus into the great Church of S. Maria Assunta, built in 1348 by the Conte di Pietramala, with its beautiful della Robbias.
Hermes bleated at the door, and the trio descended the hill together, Assunta carrying a basket of grapes and a bottle of yellow oil, Daphne with a slender flask of red wine in her hand. The next day the heavens opened, and rain poured down. The cascades above the villa became spouting waterfalls; the narrow path beside them a leaping brook.
Assunta rose from her knees and laid her crucifix on the little breast the tears were running down her worn and withered countenance. As she strove to wipe them away with her apron, she said tremblingly: "It must be told to madama." A frown came on the doctor's face. He was evidently a true Britisher, decisive in his opinions, and frank enough to declare them openly.
Assunta saw her stop and turn and listen once or twice; then the crags and hanging thickets hid her from view. Jenny saw and heard no more of the being who had thus so unexpectedly returned into her life.
The woman's face was alight with reverence and pride, and Daphne turned back to her flowers, shamed by these peasant folk for their belief in the immanence of the divine. Half an hour later Assunta reappeared, clad in Sunday garments, wearing her best coral earrings and her little black silk shoulder shawl covered with gay embroidered flowers. She held out a letter to the girl.
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