manner from that in which he had spoken to the stranger within his gates. “Believe me, you know nothing about it. What I mean is, that the place Giulia is going to is not the place of a menial servant. Do you hear, Giulia?”
“Yes, Signor Paolo!” said Giulia, now able to speak calmly, in a low, submissive voice.
“And you understand that you are never to speak to any one of being in service?”
“Yes, Si’or Paolo!” repeated Giulia, still keeping her eyes fixed on the table.
“And his reverence quite approves of it; and thinks you ought to be very thankful for your good fortune! Do you hear?”
“Yes, Si’or Paolo!”
“And Signor Sandro, who was good enough to think of you, and to find this fine opportunity, and to ride up here to-day on purpose to bring the offer of it, says that it’s a very advantageous thing!”
“Was it Signor Sandro’s kindness to think of this scheme?” asked Giulia, looking up at the farmer for a moment.
“Yes, it was! and very kind of him, I take it!” replied the old man.
“Very!” said Giulia, while a very legible sneer curved her lip into a form of beauty that was not habitual to it, and flashed in one brief gleam out of her eyes, before she again dropped them on the table.
“Do you think it necessary, Si’or Paolo,” she asked in a bard, constrained sort of tone, after there had been a minute or two of silence, “to send me away from Bella Luce, for—for—your own views, as well as for my advantage?” She knew that the old man would understand her, and that the others, at all events Beppo, would not.
He looked hard at her, as he answered, “Yes, I do think it is necessary.”
Giulia set her teeth hard together, and clenched her hands under the table till the nails nearly cut the skin, while a little shiver passed over her, leaving her as rigid, as pale, and as hard looking as marble. And she said nothing more.
“But you have said nothing about the time, Paolo!” said la Signora Sunta, who, with the difficulty about “the things” heavy on her mind, felt that the worse part of the farmer’s communication still remained untold.
“The time! why, as his reverence said, and Signor Sandro said too, the sooner the better! You can’t be too much in a hurry to make sure of a good thing! I shall be able to go into Fano with her on Sunday; and that will be the best day. It was all settled so with Signor Sandro!”
“It’ll be very difficult to get anything ready at all decent by that time! Do you hear, Giulia, my girl! You are to go on Sunday!” repeated la Sunta; for Giulia gave no sign of having heard a word more since the last answer the farmer had given to her question.
“Yes, Si’ora Sunta; I hear!”
“Well! how ever we are to get your things ready by that time, I don’t know!”
“It won’t signify much about the things!” said poor Giulia, making a very narrow escape from letting a sob escape her (and she would rather have knocked her head against the wall than have done so!) as she spoke.
“Nonsense! don’t signify! Why, you must go decent, child! You are a Vanni, after all!” remonstrated Signora Sunta.
“Worse luck!” said Giulia, re-echoing the farmer’s previous words.
The old man scowled at her, but said nothing.
“Come upstairs with me, child, and help me to see what there is to be done. And thank God that you are a Vanni, and have got decent people to think for you and care for you!”
So Giulia got up and followed the padrona out of the kitchen, venturing as she passed to cast one furtive side-long look at Beppo from under her eyelashes. It was by no means intended to meet any look of his. It was merely a look of observation.
It found him still in a state of collapse from the extremity of his astonishment and dismay.
THE STAG BEETLE.
AN AUTUMNAL MONOGRAPH.
While autumn is fast dying, phantoms of summer still meet us in the woodland walk or haunt the river’s edge. The horse-chestnut leaves have changed to red and yellow, but like the setting sun which blazes upon their glowing tints, they seem more beautiful in death than life. Here and there some wild flower timidly shows itself—a blue meadow cranesbill for instance—which missed blossoming in July. Often, too, a strawberry flower, large, white, and lustrous, may be detected lurking in the garden amongst leaves scorched with autumn’s fiery breath,—
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.
There is a mysterious silence in the morning gleams and at evening’s hour during this season, sure prophet of approaching decay, which tempts us to moralise on our buried years:—
The air is damp, and hush’d and close,
As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose
As a sickAn hour before his death.
