Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 7.djvu/600

20 (December 4, 1871.] SLAVES OF THE LAMP. [Conducted by plaining what they meant, and telling me the touching stories that are painted in the jewelled windows.

The captain's wife befriended me, and people liked my music, and I could earn more money with my zither than in the factories. The people would gather round me, asking each for his favourite song, and my story got whispered among them, and they were kinder than I could tell. "She sings for a helpless brother," they said, and fees were therefore doubled as the dropped in my lap. Great people also would send for me now from their villas; and I began to save a little money.

I had to sing one evening at a palace on the lake, and it was dark when I took my seat in the verandah. The lake glittered with moonlight, and all along the terraces hung dimly-coloured lamps. A crowd of gay figures had gathered on the marble steps that led into the water. When I sang every one listened; when I ceased, I was forgotten; save that somebody went to a table and fetched me wine.

I looked up to thank this somebody, and saw the Signor John.

"Little Netta!" he exclaimed, amazed. "Can it be possible that this is you?"

"Yes, signor," I said.

"Tell me how it has happened," he asked. "What can have fetched you down out of the snows to Como?"

"My father is killed by the avalanche," I said, "and I am earning money for Niccolo, who is hurt in the Alps. It is now time for me to go, signor; good-bye!"

"Stay, I am going with you!" he said, and followed me out on the hill, carrying my zither.

"Sit down here and rest," he said, when we had gone a little way.

"But I have still to get to Como," I said, "and I want to rest in my bed."

"That is true," said the signor, smiling. "Let us then take a boat at once!"

I looked up the water, and assured myself that Placido was nowhere waiting for me. I stepped into the signor's boat, and went floating with him down the moonlit lake.

"How beautiful you have grown, Netta!" said the signor as we went. "Did I not tell you that you would be a woman when we should meet again?"

I gravely shook my head. I remembered that he had not come back, even to see if I were alive.

"You have also grown prim and cold," he added presently. "Indeed, you are so on that I wonder how I knew you."

"It is only that one cannot always be a child," I said, sadly; and he lifted me out of the boat, and brought me to the foot of the staircase which led up to my nest in the roof. When I peered down from the top I saw him still looking up. I looked then into the glass at the face which the Signor John had called so beautiful.

"Placido never told me that I was beautiful," I reflected.

that I saw the signor every day. I had long walks on the hills with him, and many a pleasant hour on the moonlit lake. He used to meet me at the Duomo, so that I could not think of my prayers; and Giulia began to tease me, calling me a noble English dame.

"You'll not forget me and baby," she said. "You'll send us a present from England;" and I had already considered in secret about what I should send her.

I thought I should be extremely happy were it not for Placido Lorez: but his face was always before me, and his eyes had got grave and sad. His sadness troubled me so much that I tried to keep out of his way, and he soon saw that I avoided him, and was careful not to annoy me. Once when I went out on the lake with the Signor John, it happened that Placido's boat was the boat he hired. Not till I was fairly seated did I see the boatman.

Placido picked up his oars, and took his seat so that he could not see me; and never spoke a word nor moved his head. His oars dipped in the lake and scattered the shining water to right and left; but except for this sign of life he might have been taken for a man of stone. He did not even lance at me as I passed him out of the boat, but his downcast face haunted me all that night.

The next day I was tripping along by the boats on the verge of the lake; my zither perched on my shoulder, and flowers blooming in my breast; rare bright flowers, sent me that morning by the Signor John. It was far in the afternoon, when there is a glitter about the place, such a burning of colour and flashing of water, such a glow and dazzle overhead and underfoot, that sometimes one can hardly see one's way. The boats look all the same, with their crimson cushions, and with the dash, as of ink, in the water, under the side that is against the sun. The boatmen's white shirts make them also one like another, though none were so tall as Placido, nor so quiet, nor yet so strong. This time I did