attendants had issued, and obtained a direction to the Servite church. The high-mass was just over there also, by the time he reached it; and he had not watched at the door long before little Lisa, accompanied by her maid, came out. She looked so smart in her Sunday-dress, that poor Beppo felt shy of accosting her there, in the street, amid all the people thronging out of the church. But the emergency was too pressing to admit of hesitation. So he stepped up to her, and instantly disobeyed her father’s injunction by saying:
“Signorina, your father told me that I should most likely find you here. I came in from Bella Luce this morning.”
“Oh, Signor Beppo! I am so glad to see you! I have been thinking that you were never coming to Fano any more! And yet—one would have thought that you would have found more to do in the city than ever! What on earth has become of you? You have not come a bit too soon, I can tell you.”
“What do you mean, Signora Lisa?” replied Beppo, while a cold sweat came over him. “Is there—anything new?”
“Altro! You should not have stayed away so long. Out of sight out of mind, you know!”
“May I walk home with you, Signorina? Your father has kindly asked me to dine there. But I came here because I was so anxious; and—I knew that you would—tell me—tell me—all!” faltered Beppo, whose words seemed to stick in his throat as he uttered them.
“But first tell me why you have been so long without coming to Fano? I thought, of course, that you would have come in to see Giulia at least every market-day. And I am sure she expected it, too, though she has never said a word. And in all this time you have never been near her once.”
“Because I could not! They would not let me leave the farm. Oh, Signora Lisa! can you doubt that I was anxious to come—? But, now that I have come—what am I the better? What can I do? But, do you know, Lisa,” he continued, dropping his voice to a shuddering whisper, “I think I have seen her—I think I saw her in the street this morning.”
“Think you saw Giulia! Why, Signor Beppo, what do you mean?” said Lisa, looking up at him in amazement. “Don’t you know whether you saw her or not? Did you not speak to her if you saw her?”
“No! I did not speak to her. I—I—I did not feel certain—she seemed so changed. But tell me first of all where she lives? Is it a very large house?”
“Yes. The Palazzo Bollandini; one of the largest palaces in Fano!”
“Very grand?”
“Yes; a very fine house.”
“And is it next door to a church?” asked Beppo, in increasing agony, while his great stalwart legs seemed to tremble under him.
“Yes, it is next door to the Church of the Observantines. Why, what of it?”
“And is—the lady she is living with a very stout woman?” asked he, still hoping against hope, and longing to hear that Giulia’s mistress was by no means particularly stout.
But Lisa ruthlessly destroyed the last gleam of hope.
“Yes, La Signora Dossi is a very stout woman,” she said.
“Then it is all over with me!” said Beppo, in a voice of the deepest despair; “there can never be anything again between me and Giulia!”
“What do you mean, Signor Beppo? All over between you and Giulia, because Signora Dossi is very fat! What can you mean? I do not understand you this morning! If it was after dining with papa, instead of before”
(The Romagnoles are not marked to the same degree by that exemplary sobriety which distinguishes the Tuscans.)
“I am sober enough, pur troppo!” returned Beppo, with intense sadness in his voice. “Then I did see Giulia, just now. She was coming out of a church with a monstrously fat woman, and they went into an enormous palace next door.”
“Well! and why did you not speak to her?”
“Lisa,” said Beppo, in a low voice of the deepest tragedy, “Lisa, there was a corporal with her!”
“Ah, the corporal!” said Lisa, in a voice which indicated that the corporal was no new phenomenon to her.
“Lisa!”
“And who was with the fat lady?” asked Lisa, rather hurriedly.
“The fat lady had hold of the arm of a captain of Bersaglieri.”
“Dear me! I wonder what o’clock it is!” said Lisa. “I wonder whether there could be time. We don’t dine till one, and cook is always a quarter of an hour behindhand.”
“Time for what, Signorina Lisa? It is striking the quarter to one, now, by the clock in the piazza. Oh, Lisa! I am very miserable!” said poor Beppo, in a tone which seemed to convey a little reproach for the manner in which she had received his communication of the misfortune of the corporal.
“Time to go and see—Giulia before dinner. I was thinking we could go together, and pay a visit to Signora Dossi; but I am afraid we have not time,” she added, with a voice of much disappointment.
“Me! I could not think of doing such a thing!” said Beppo, with terror and horror in his voice.
“What! not go and see Giulia!”
“With that corporal there!” shuddered Beppo.
“Oh! the corporal is only with Captain Brilli. That was Captain Brilli that you saw with La Signora Dossi,” blushing a little, and laughing a little more.
“Oh—h—h! Ah—h—h!” with a varying intonation that marked the progressive development of enlightenment in his mind; “that is why you would go there. But, Signora Lisa, I can’t go there to see that corporal and Giulia together. It would make me mad!”
“But that is just the reason you should go there, Signor Beppo,” reasoned little Lisa. “Perhaps, if you had not stayed away from Fano so