victorious,—that Sunta should herself pay for the weaving of her yarn in the neighbouring town out of the proceeds of it.
The labour of the females of the family, I have said; and have nevertheless mentioned that Sunta Vanni was the mother of two sons only. And doubtless the English reader pictures to himself Dame Vanni in the similitude of Dame Durden, who, as the rustic old stave says, “kept five serving maids.” But this would be an error. Italian farmers, with the exception of a few in a larger way of business than Paolo Vanni of Bella Luce, do not in that part of Italy use any labour on their farms save that of the members of their family. A large family is held to be a sign and means of thriving. But it must be a family in the strict sense of the word, connected by blood, and not merely by the tie between the employer and the employed. Whose, then, were the other fingers besides Dame Vanni’s own, which assisted in twirling these ceaseless Bella Luce spindles, and contributed to the accumulation of sheeting and table-cloths as little intended to be ever used as such, as the rarissimi of a bibliomaniac’s library to be read. Whose were those active fingers?
They belonged to Giulia Vanni; and were among the very few things that Giulia Vanni could call her own. Giulia was the orphan child of a distant cousin of Paolo, who was nevertheless his nearest relative. Paolo was, I think, hardly the man at any period of his life, to charge himself willingly with the support and care of other people’s children. But in the first place it must be understood that public opinion, and even the exigencies of the law, are much more stringent upon such points in Italy, than they are with us. A nephew, who is capable of doing so, may be compelled by law to support his uncle by the father’s side—(not so his mother’s brother)—and public opinion would extend the claims of kinship very much further. To a mediæval Italian, it was quite a matter of course that a brother, a son, a father, or even a cousin, should suffer death for his relative’s political or other crime; and this strong solidarity of all the members of one house has left deep traces in the manners and sentiments of the people to the present day. Paolo Vanni may have therefore felt, that he could not without risking a degree of opprobrium that he was not prepared to face, refuse to take this little orphan cousin, far away cousin though she was, to his home.
But in the next place there are strong grounds for thinking that Giulio Vanni, the father of little Giulia, though a poor man, was not altogether a destitute one. He must, people thought, have left some little property behind him. But Paolo Vanni, who was with him during his last illness, and at the time of his death, and who naturally had the management of whatever small matters there were to manage, showed that when all was paid, there was nothing left; that Giulia was wholly unprovided for; that there was nothing for it but for him to show his charity by supporting and bringing her up. I believe that if all the yarn those rosy taper fingers had twiddled off that eternal distaff, had been fairly sold in Ancona, the proceeds would have paid the cost of Giulia’s keep. I have a strong idea, too—to speak out plainly, and shame that old thief against whose machinations Paolo Vanni was always paying insurance money,—that if that troublesome voice, which has been mentioned as bothering the wealthy farmer, could have been overheard, one might have learnt some curious particulars about the executorship accounts of Giulio Vanni. Don Evandro, at all events, must have known all about it . . . sub sigillo confessionis . . . . for Paolo was a very religious man.
All these matters, however, were bygones, and altogether beside the present purpose. Whether Giulio Vanni had ever been entitled to any modicum of this world’s goods or not, she clearly possessed none now,—at the time, that is, to which the singular events to be related in the following pages, refer,—some year or so before the present time of writing. It will be more to the purpose to tell the reader what Giulia at that time had.
She had eighteen years; and all the knowledge, experience, wisdom, health, and talents that could be gathered in that space of time on the slope of an Apennine valley;—and not altogether such a bad dower either, as some of the more tocher’d lasses of the cities either on the northern or the southern side of the Alps may perhaps be disposed to imagine. Imprimis, there was a figure five feet seven inches in height; lithe, springy, light, agile as that of a mountain goat; a step like a fawn’s, and a carriage of the pretty small head to match; a fair broad brow, not very lofty, but giving unmistakeable promise of energy of character and good practical working intelligence; above it a wonderful profusion of raven black hair, not very fine, but glossy as the raven’s wing, and falling on either side from the parting at the top of the head in natural ripples, on which the sunbeams played in a thousand hide-and-seek effects of light and shade; well-opened large black eyes, frank and courageous, with a whole legion of wicked laughing imps dancing and flashing about like fire-flies in the depths of them; a little delicately formed nez retroussé, which very plainly said “beware” to such as had the gift of interpreting nature’s code of signals; a large but exquisitely formed mouth, the favourite trysting place of smiles and innocent waggeries, the home of irresistible sweetness,—a mouth that bade him, or even her, who looked on it pay no heed to the warning conveyed by neighbour nose, but on the contrary, place boundless trust and confidence in the proprietress of it,—a mouth whose signals every human thing with eyes in its head could read, whereas only cynically philosophic physiognomists, who had burned their fingers, or at least their hearts, by former investigations of similar phenomena, could understand what that queer little nose said. It cannot perhaps be fairly asserted that all these good things were wholly the gift of old Apennine; but the splendid colouring,—a study for Giorgione!—the rich, clear brown cheek, with a hue of the sun’s own painting, like that which he puts, when he most delicately touches it, on an October peach!—that was Apennine’s own present to his daughter! For the rest, the mountain women said that Giulia Vanni was too slight to be good