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 all we could do. You are a female thing, Musa; your heart will be the first to burn, the first of all!'

'Will it?' said Musa, seriously, but not in any way alarmed, for the thought of that flaming pile by the seashore by night was a familiar image to her.

'Aye, for sure; you will be a woman!' said Andreino, hammering into his boat.

She knitted her brows in angry meditation, and went slowly away from him.

Andreino looked after her as Joconda had done.

'She grows fast,' he said, as he took his pipe from his mouth. His wife was sitting near him on a block of stone, a feeble, ague-stricken, wasted creature.

'She grows fast,' he repeated. 'I wish we could get her for little Nando; she has a rare courage, and is as handsome as an almond tree in flower.'

'She is a child,' said the wife; 'how you talk!'

'In a year she will not be a child. The almond tree is first to flower, but it is soon off blossom,' said Andreino, hammering at the crazy timbers of his old boat. 'The woman of Savoy should look out for a stout