Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/80

 as to whether she would tell the people of Santa Tarsilla that it was the daughter of their hero whom she was about to take beneath her roof. She had turned the matter over long and anxiously in her thoughts, as the public waggon had rumbled on its way down the long stony roads, and at length had decided with herself not to let them know it. Joconda was a woman more truthful than the rest; that is to say, she saw no harm whatever in an untruth if it were necessary and injured nobody, a distinction that in Italy is rarely drawn; but she did not think a lie the natural answer to, and legitimate offspring of, a question, as most of her neighbours did, and she preferred to tell the simple truth when she could, which is esteemed in the country generally as but poor dull work, showing great lack of invention in whosoever is content with it.

At last, as she had lain the night through wide awake, disturbed by the presence and the thought of Saturnino's offspring, she had resolved that it would be best not to tell the truth here. The people would make an idol of their hero's offspring, and the child, as she grew older, would be restless and perturbed if she heard that her