Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/308

Rh to what askings, to what suggestion of wanton dealing! Remember that in all this I shall have your honour to keep, as you have mine. Say a great many prayers, my little heart, for the welfare of my soul and of yours; lock your door at night; let Monna Matura go with you to mass and confession; and—and—oh! my wife, my little wife, but I love not the leaving of you!" And so these poor children cried on each other's breasts, and so fell to the unspoken tongue of Love's elect. Next morning he went early, leaving her kissed in bed.

He saw her once again, spent a most blissful two hours in her company, before the Countess Lionella took it into her head to shelter from the summer heats in a villa she had above Monselice. Thither Angioletto was forced to go in her train. He found it intolerable, went with a heart of lead; for so cheerful a soul he was what he looked, parched and wan. This lasted a week. Then came a paper, scrawled with brown ink marks, which, after much study, he took to imply—

This revived him amazingly: he went singing about the gardens which hung upon the side of the grey hill, and composed a pastoral comedy to be acted by the Countess's ladies in the Temple grove.

Lionella very openly and without afterthought made love to him. He was a charming little lad, it is true; but quite apart from that, he was the only male creature above servant rank in the