Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/639

Rh knotted about her throat was adjusted with a certain coquettish grace, while the feet in the worn slippers were small. The girl was a creature of frowns and smiles, fierce wrath and sudden caresses, with dark eyes glowing in a delicate, oval face, white teeth, and mobile lips.

A young man seated on the ledge of wall, with a crumpled journal outspread on his knee, saluted her with a gallant glance and word. The fountain was a rendezvous of the youth of Spina, and, aware of the circumstance, Sabina had placed a red carnation in her hair before descending the stair to obtain water.

"Good-morning, Sabina mia," said the young man, stretching his shapely limbs. "How pretty you are to-day!"

"Bah!" retorted Sabina, setting her little white teeth together. "There's nothing but work up here from morning to night, and so many mouths to feed. It will be a wonder if the father does not throw himself out of the window some day."

"Eh, carina, you are never idle," remarked the young man, without quitting his comfortable posture. "Your little fingers seem bewitched, sometimes. As for the daddy's jumping out of the window, reassure yourself on that matter. Vittorio Regaldi is a wise as well as an honest man. Be tranquil, my beauty."

Sabina looked at him with the mockery of a nervous, energetic temperament when required to contemplate the inert repose of a lymphatic companion.

"How well they have christened you Il Bimbo, Masolino Cari!" she exclaimed, in her shrill tones, as she rested the copper vessel on the fountain edge. "You are a baby, and have no more brains than the sheep yonder."

"It is not a sheep; it is an ass," rejoined Masolino, laughing.

"Well, an ass, then," added Sabina, sharply.

The two young people glanced at the spot thus indicated. A house, more massive in structure than the others, presented an irregular form to the street, while the portal studded with rusty nails, and the solidity of the walls, suggested a feudal stronghold near the town gate. The past history of the mansion was unknown to the poor lodgers now herding together on the different floors like a colony of sea-birds on some wave-washed rock. Opposite the fountain the wall of the lower story left a space of flat roof which the tenant had converted into a pergola by means of vines and flower-pots. Waving tendrils of tender green clasped lovingly the gray stones; roses, lilies, jonquils, and violets unfolded their petals to the warm wind wafted up the ravines from the Mediterranean Sea. Occasionally some deluded insect strayed from the rich Tuscan country on the other side, tempted by the fragrance of these blossoms into the belief that honey and pollen were to be had for the asking at arid little Spina, perched on the crag of hill.

The angle of the building afforded space for a shop, and above the door was the rudely-sculptured head of an animal.

This head, much worn and discolored by the rain and frost of years, was an object of superstitious interest and endless speculation to the town. Whether sheep or ass, it was bewitched, and, like the statues of the Alhambra vaults, guarded hidden treasure. If one could find