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"But you do not give her her Christian name," and he smiled. "Maria Assunta! It isn't half as pretty. She has such lovely deep eyes, and such velvety skin that her Indian name suits her best. What does it matter?" "Perhaps it helps them to break away from Indian superstitions. I do see some improvement in the women, but the men " She laughed lightly. "The women were better in the beginning.
"For how on earth can the poor creature, if he be really still alive, have remained in those clothes for a year and travelled half across Europe in them?" "It is monstrous. And yet there he stood and I saw him as clearly as I see you. He was certainly not in my thoughts. I was thinking of nothing and talking to Assunta about the silkworms, when suddenly he appeared, not twenty yards away."
"What have I to do to-day?" she asked. Assunta meditated. "Eh, it 's a very busy day! Fortunately I have a better memory than the signorina," she said, turning to Rowland. She began to count on her fingers. "We have to go to the Pie di Marmo to see about those laces that were sent to be washed. You said also that you wished to say three sharp words to the Buonvicini about your pink dress.
"I?" said Daphne, starting. "The night the lambkin was killed, did not the Signorina go out in great distress, and did not the blessed one come to her aid?" "Ma che!" exclaimed Daphne faintly, falling back, in her astonishment, upon Assunta's vocabulary. "I have told no one, not even Giacomo," said Assunta, "but I saw it all.
Christina said nothing more, and Rowland, to let her make her reflections, left his place and strolled away. Poor Assunta, sitting patiently on a stone bench, and unprovided, on this occasion, with military consolation, gave him a bright, frank smile, which might have been construed as an expression of regret for herself, and of sympathy for her mistress.
Meanwhile I put on an old dress and half a dozen veils, I take Assunta under my arm, and we start on a pedestrian tour. It 's a bore that I can't take the poodle, but he attracts attention. We trudge about everywhere; there is nothing I like so much. I hope you will congratulate me on the simplicity of my tastes." "I congratulate you on your wisdom.
Here hedges sparkled in a harvest of scarlet cherries; and here sheep and goats nibbled over little, bright tracts of sweet grass. Higher yet shone out groves of chestnut trees, all shining with the light of their tassels, very bright by contrast with the gloom of the mountain pines. And then, where two tall cypresses stood upon either side, Jenny and Assunta found the shrine and stayed a while.
Titian's Virgin received into Heaven, soaring midway between the archangel who descends to crown her and the apostles who yearn to follow her, is far less a Madonna Assunta than the apotheosis of humanity conceived as a radiant mother. Throughout the picture there is nothing ascetic, nothing mystic, nothing devotional. Nor did the art of the Renaissance stop here.
Assunta had carried a small tray out to the arbor in the garden, and Daphne was having her afternoon tea there alone. About her, on the frescoed walls of this little open-air pavilion, were grouped pink shepherds and shepherdesses, disporting themselves in airy garments of blue and green in a meadow that ended abruptly to make room for long windows.
You do not know what a refuge it has been to me through all Aunt Alice's receptions and teas. Do leave New York, and come and live with me near ancient Rome. We can easily slip back two thousand years. I am your spoiled daughter, Daphne There was a knock at the door. "Avanti," called the girl. Assunta entered, with a saffron-colored night-cap on.
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