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She would go from Padua to the farthest country on Fra Paolo's map on the strength of her biting tongue and her snapping green eyes. "Make way," she orders, "you low, vile brutes!" and the peasants draw back and look askance at her, and the women mutter under their breath, and the girls laugh a low laugh. See her kiss her hand and lay it on the marble.
He could work now and earn money, much money, and the world would know and honor Paolo's mother as it had honored him. As he walked through the foggy winter day toward the river, where delayed throngs jostled one another at the bridge entrance, he thought with grateful heart of the friends who had smoothed the way for him. Ah, not for long the fog and slush!
It was a sore subject with Paolo, for he was in school that day. And then he and his mother dried their tears and went to work. Henceforth there was to be little else for them. The luxury of grief is not among the few luxuries which Mott Street tenements afford. Paolo's life, after that, was lived mainly with the pants on his hard bench in the rear tenement.
The nose was larger and of more noble shape, and Paolo's complexion was less yellow than his brother's; the features were not surrounded by furrows or lines, and the leanness of the priest's face threw them into relief. The clean shaven upper lip showed a kind and quiet mouth, which smiled easily and betrayed a sense of humour, but was entirely free from any suggestion of cruelty.
There was no reason, as she knew, why Messer Paolo's son should not mate with Messer Pietro's daughter. But being a romantic creature, as many women are, she resolved to bring the match about in secret. Elena took little time to reflect, but told her nurse that she was willing, if Gerardo willed it too, to have him for her husband.
The pink farm-house stands almost in the centre of the little territory, among the olive trees. It is a solid, six-roomed place, about fifty years old, having been rebuilt by Paolo's uncle. Here we came to live for a time with the Fiori, Maria and Paolo, and their three children, Giovanni and Marco and Felicina.
One night, as he paced back and forth on his beat, listening for the possible roar of an aeroplane or the sudden bursting of a bomb, there flashed into his mind the story of services rendered Venice in the olden time by homing pigeons. He seemed a child again, sitting close to old Paolo's side and listening to his tales of happenings in the long ago.
Both were wont to throw a light veil of humor over very serious discussions. Both could use, with great effect, curt, caustic description: Jefferson's letter to Governor Langdon satirizing the crowned heads of Europe, as he had seen them, has a worthy pendant in Fra Paolo's pictures of sundry representatives of the Vatican.
I will mention, while I am on this subject, a few books which I want, and which I am not likely to pick up here Daru's Histoire de Venise; St. Real's Conjuration de Venise; Fra Paolo's works; Monstrelet's Chronicle; and Coxe's book on the Pelhams. I should also like to have a really good edition of Lucian. My sister desires me to send you her kind regards.
It was a great exertion, and, after satisfying his hunger, he then and there closed his weary eyes and took a nap on the pavement, much to Paolo's amusement. "Well," he exclaimed, "it's the first time I ever taught a bird to fly. One never knows what one can do until one tries."
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