Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/521

 . 31, 1863.] manner from that in which he had spoken to the stranger within his gates. “Believe me, you know nothing about it. What I mean is, that the place Giulia is going to is not the place of a menial servant. Do you hear, Giulia?”

“Yes, Signor Paolo!” said Giulia, now able to speak calmly, in a low, submissive voice.

“And you understand that you are never to speak to any one of being in service?”

“Yes, Si’or Paolo!” repeated Giulia, still keeping her eyes fixed on the table.

“And his reverence quite approves of it; and thinks you ought to be very thankful for your good fortune! Do you hear?”

“Yes, Si’or Paolo!”

“And Signor Sandro, who was good enough to think of you, and to find this fine opportunity, and to ride up here to-day on purpose to bring the offer of it, says that it’s a very advantageous thing!”

“Was it Signor Sandro’s kindness to think of this scheme?” asked Giulia, looking up at the farmer for a moment.

“Yes, it was! and very kind of him, I take it!” replied the old man.

“Very!” said Giulia, while a very legible sneer curved her lip into a form of beauty that was not habitual to it, and flashed in one brief gleam out of her eyes, before she again dropped them on the table.

“Do you think it necessary, Si’or Paolo,” she asked in a bard, constrained sort of tone, after there had been a minute or two of silence, “to send me away from Bella Luce, for—for—your own views, as well as for my advantage?” She knew that the old man would understand her, and that the others, at all events Beppo, would not.

He looked hard at her, as he answered, “Yes, I do think it is necessary.”

Giulia set her teeth hard together, and clenched her hands under the table till the nails nearly cut the skin, while a little shiver passed over her, leaving her as rigid, as pale, and as hard looking as marble. And she said nothing more.

“But you have said nothing about the time, Paolo!” said la Signora Sunta, who, with the difficulty about “the things” heavy on her mind, felt that the worse part of the farmer’s communication still remained untold.

“The time! why, as his reverence said, and Signor Sandro said too, the sooner the better! You can’t be too much in a hurry to make sure of a good thing! I shall be able to go into Fano with her on Sunday; and that will be the best day. It was all settled so with Signor Sandro!”

“It’ll be very difficult to get anything ready at all decent by that time! Do you hear, Giulia, my girl! You are to go on Sunday!” repeated la Sunta; for Giulia gave no sign of having heard a word more since the last answer the farmer had given to her question.

“Yes, Si’ora Sunta; I hear!”

“Well! how ever we are to get your things ready by that time, I don’t know!”

“It won’t signify much about the things!” said poor Giulia, making a very narrow escape from letting a sob escape her (and she would rather have knocked her head against the wall than have done so!) as she spoke.

“Nonsense! don’t signify! Why, you must go decent, child! You are a Vanni, after all!” remonstrated Signora Sunta.

“Worse luck!” said Giulia, re-echoing the farmer’s previous words.

The old man scowled at her, but said nothing.

“Come upstairs with me, child, and help me to see what there is to be done. And thank God that you are a Vanni, and have got decent people to think for you and care for you!”

So Giulia got up and followed the padrona out of the kitchen, venturing as she passed to cast one furtive side-long look at Beppo from under her eyelashes. It was by no means intended to meet any look of his. It was merely a look of observation.

It found him still in a state of collapse from the extremity of his astonishment and dismay.

autumn is fast dying, phantoms of summer still meet us in the woodland walk or haunt the river’s edge. The horse-chestnut leaves have changed to red and yellow, but like the setting sun which blazes upon their glowing tints, they seem more beautiful in death than life. Here and there some wild flower timidly shows itself—a blue meadow cranesbill for instance—which missed blossoming in July. Often, too, a strawberry flower, large, white, and lustrous, may be detected lurking in the garden amongst leaves scorched with autumn’s fiery breath,—

There is a mysterious silence in the morning gleams and at evening’s hour during this season, sure prophet of approaching decay, which tempts us to moralise on our buried years:—

Animated nature, too, has changed. The gaudy tribes of butterflies and the large white moths of twilight have disappeared. But the gorgeous red Admiral seeks the ivy-blossoms on every sunny noon in great numbers, as if to compensate for the decreasing ranks of his brethren. Swifts have long fled to warmer climes—those most interesting members of all the swallow tribe which visit our treacherous climate latest of all the summer immigrants and leave it first. Their cousins, the chimney swallows and martins, are congregating for their departure to sunnier climes round our roofs and towers. So loath are we to part with these cherished visitors of sunshine and enjoyment, that we are for once inclined to be angry with the robins which now emerge from private life, as if conscious that ere long they will be gladly welcomed. The newspapers will soon contain the usual autumnal notices of the great northern diver appearing on some southern sheet of water, or of some credible witness having observed the last of the swallows, after several unsuccessful