and in a lower voice, “why it is that my father and Signor Vanni have settled for you to go and live there. Don’t you know?”
Giulia was for a moment inclined to be angry at this unceremonious allusion to matters that to her were sacred, and wrapped in the secresy of her inmost heart. But a moment’s refection showed her both the uselessness and the injustice of being offended at poor little Lisa’s friendly-intended confidences.
“Yes, Signorina Lisa;” she said sadly, “I know what I am sent away from Bella Luce for.”
“But you don’t mind it much, do you? I don’t think I should, if I were you. And you know, I suppose, why my father wanted it?”
“I suppose so,” said Giulia, while a feeling of startled surprise at the suddenness and unreserve of her new acquaintance’s mode of treating subjects which she only approached shyly and timorously, even in her communings with her own heart, mingled with her sadness.
“To make a match of it between me and Beppo, you know. But that will never be! Don’t you be afraid of that! Beppo is for you, and for nobody else. He and I quite understand one another!”
“But—but, excuse me, Signorina Lisa,” stammered Giulia, almost speechless from the extremity of her astonishment; “may I ask if you understood from Beppo that—that—I had ever accepted his addresses?”
“He, he, he!” giggled Lisa. “No! He said that you would have nothing to say to him. Poor Beppo!—he, he, he! But, between ourselves, we know what that means. Surely you have played the cruel long enough, Signorina Giulia! And poor Beppo absolutely adores you! He is desperate; he is indeed. And, hark! in your ear,” dropping her voice to a whisper as she spoke, “you may see him as often as you like at la Dossi’s house. Lord bless you! She is not the one to keep young people asunder. It is there that I see—somebody!”
“But suppose I don’t want to see—anybody?” returned Giulia, half-sadly and half-satirically.
“Oh! come now, Signorina Giulia, let us be friends! I am sure I wish to. And we can help one another,” said Lisa, in a voice of remonstrance.
“I am very much obliged to you, Signorina Lisa, for wishing to be friends with me. It is very kind of you. If I can be of any use to you, I shall be very happy;—you have only to command me! But—but—but I was quite in earnest in—in—what I said about myself.”
The two girls found great difficulty in understanding each other, in consequence of the vast distance from each other at which they were placed, not so much by the intrinsic and original difference in their two natures, as by that of their social position, and the mental training derived thence. The contrasted manner in which they felt and spoke on the great subject, which is more important and interesting than any other that can occupy a young girl’s mind at their time of life, was exhibiting the different tendencies of the town and country nature. It is true that Giulia’s was the deeper, richer and more earnest nature; but that was only in the second place the cause of the notable difference between them. It is the denizen of the town who runs out in fluent, abundant, and ready talk. The peasant nature is more reserved, more inarticulate. Less accustomed to constant contact and companionship with others, the contadino, and, perhaps, in a still greater degree, the contadina, is unready with the tongue, reserved in temper, shy, modest in thought as well as in word, unable to get readily spoken even that which she would desire to speak. It is the town girl who pins her heart upon her sleeve, makes gossip matter of the most delicate secrets, and is ready, at a moment’s notice, to discuss them with any street-corner or door-step female friend.
To Giulia Lisa’s mode of speaking was shocking and painful, as well as extraordinary. She could not understand her. The manner in which she plunged into the sacred places—the innermost holy of holies of Giulia’s guarded heart, seemed to her an impertinence; and the way in which she dealt with her own secrets almost an indecency. She was at a loss whether to think her worthless or half-witted.
“How do you mean in earnest about what you said of yourself? What did you say?” replied Lisa, quite unconscious of the slightest indiscretion.
“I said that I had no particular wish to—to—to see—a—anybody at the house of la Signora Dossi,” returned Giulia, casting down her eyes.
“Oh, don’t talk in that way! There’s nobody to hear but ourselves. You don’t really mean that you don’t care for poor Beppo. I can hardly believe that. I should be very sorry. And even if you did not, it would be reason the more why you should wish to see somebody else;” said Lisa, reflectively. “You are not—?” she said suddenly, completing her phrase by pantomimically taking an invisible rosary from the side of her dress, where it would have hung from her girdle, if she had worn one, and moving her fingers and lips as if she were going through the exercise of “telling her beads.”
“Oh, no!” said Giulia, laughing in spite of herself; “not that at all.”
It was the only conceivable theory on which Lisa could explain the case of a girl, who neither had a lover, nor yet was anxious to take the ordinary means towards having one. There was, however, one other means of explaining Giulia’s conduct;—it might be fear, and over-caution.
“Well, then,” she returned, “we ought to understand each other. You don’t suppose that I should say a word to my father! And what’s more, let me whisper in your ear, la Dossi won’t say a word either. She never tells tales,—had too many secrets of her own to keep once upon a time, I suppose. And she’s too good a creature. Lord bless you! Papa thinks she tells him everything. So she does, about her money and property, and such things. But—not matters which don’t concern him. Tell me, Giulia dear,” she added, sliding coaxingly up to her, putting her arm round her waist, and looking up with a