Page:Tales of Today.djvu/130

114 to the gallant her bravos were there, waiting on the stairs by which we came up. They finished him off for you, then they buried him for you in those broccoli beds. Allez, they have turned up their bones, right there in that garden!

"This business lasted for some time. One evening, though, look you, along comes her brother, whose name was Tarquinius Sixtus, and passes beneath her window. She does not recognize him. She calls him in. He ascends the stair. At night all cats are gray. As it had been with the others, so it was with him. But he had left his pocket-handkerchief behind him, on which his name was written.

"No sooner had she seen the wickedness that they had been guilty of than she was seized with despair, so, quick she unclasps her garter and hangs herself to that beam there. Well, there you have a fine example for young folks!"

While the old woman was thus confounding the centuries, and mixing up the Tarquins and the Borgias, I had my eyes fixed on the floor. I had discovered there a few rose petals, still quite fresh, which gave me food for reflection.

"Who is it that cultivates this garden?" I asked the crone.

"My son, sir, who is gardener to M. Vanozzi, the gentleman who owns .the garden next door. M. Vanozzi is always in the Maremma; he don't ever come to Rome nowadays. That is why the garden is not kept in better order. My son is with him—and I'm afraid that they won't return very soon," she added, with a sigh.

"So M. Vanozzi keeps him occupied, does he?"