the piazza at Ave Maria and at the fair-Bianca even before Nettina is the pet of our village. She is greyeyed and smooth-tongued, with long hair and lithe figure, not proud nor hasty, but good-tempered and merry, with ready jest, when the evening's 'chaff' has hit the hardest. Moreover, she can deftly spin the distaff and weave linen on the hand-loom: Bianca is San Matteo's second belle.

The daylight is gone, but the clearness of the summer's night is as good as the sun. Supper has been cooked and eaten at home; the hearth is swept, and though the Angelus has finished sounding awhile ago, and resting-time is near, our Bianca sallies out into the white evening to do a commission that has been on her mind all day. The Signor Cappellano shall earn four soldi to-night, and who knows if he shall not earn some more on the day of the wedding, for Pietro Gambari is rich, and every priest shall have his due. Already she begins to dream of that pretty day in the mellow autumn, and of the silk dress, which surely such a promising lover will not fail to bestow for the marriage, even besides the gold which it is her right to expect! And so many confetti for the children! Bianca is rash. She is going to negotiate a little for herself, without the help, as yet, of the inevitable mediator. But only a little, to the extent of answering a love-letter! If the

R

suitor be true and worthy, he will find the mediator to send to her father's house.

There is an early moon. It hangs in the clear sky just above the church spire, and floods the piazzetta with grey light. The leaves of the walnut tree near by shiver gently, and the black cypresses in the burying-ground look very ghostly, but far off the moonlight only makes things lovelier. Everything is a little mystified in its treacherous beams, only the mountain's outline looks more simply clear than even in daylight, when white vapours are prone to stray upon the border. Monte Bruno's three cones stand, in even row, against the southern sky, and the moon is so bright that you can see the large chestnut that grows in one of the curves. Mon Pilato rears a tall mass into the nearer distance. Cappellano's cottage stands quite in the shadow of the oratory of San Gian-Battista, and there is even no light in the window this evening; but ghosts are few in the pious valleys of the Scrivia - Bianca has no fears.

The

'Are you at home, Frà Giuseppe?' she calls from below.

Who is it wants me at this hour of night?' growls the under priest, as he comes out upon the stone balcony beneath his porch? And is it you, Bianca bella? Come up, come up only!' Even a priest is appeased by the

sight of a pretty girl. Who would have thought of your coming to visit an old man like me?'

The Cappellano knows as well as another what is likely to be the errand of a damsel who seeks him after working hours! But he is not in canonicals, and would not be averse to a little amusement on his own account before the love-letter business begins.

'Come in, Bianca bella, I have two mushrooms in oil on the hearth, that, if I don't mistake, you will thank me right prettily for when you have eaten!'

'O bella!' cries the girl laughing, Bella come il fondo della padella' (pretty as the bottom of the frying-pan), 'as the proverb says. You don't take me in with that kind of fun. I come on business.'

But even while she speaks Bianca has seated herself on the bench beside the hearth, and is proving the merits of the mushrooms.

'How goes it, Ninetta?' says she the while to the old servant. You have a fine time of it with this man, I can take my oath. If I live to be a hundred, I'll have nothing to do with men.'

Master and maid burst into a loud laugh.

'I suppose it's not to see the colour of my ink that you've come again to-night, then, you little liar.'

The Cappellano makes as though to pinch her cheek,

but thinks better of it, for the girls of this village are very proud.

'Well, well, I have a new bottle of beautiful red! Oh, what funghi, eh? Come into my study. I never do business in the kitchen. Ninetta has the long tongue; and a love-letter, why, it's as delicate a matter as the confessional!'

'Vossignoria can easily jest, because you are but a priest, who knows nothing of these things'-Bianca blushes and is pleased as she says this--but indeed it is of no love that I speak to night, and that you might have known me better than to suppose!'

More laughing; nobody believes a word that anybody else says! More chattering, and a little good, sound gossip; then the Cappellano leads the way to his study. It is not very different from the kitchen. Instead of a hearth in the middle of the floor, there is an old, roughhewn table; instead of bright copper and earthenware vessels upon the walls, there are strangely-coloured maps of the two hemispheres. Two or three books bound in white calf-breviaries perhaps-lean to one or other side of the bookcase shelves; in the table's midst is an inkstand with a sponge soaked into it, a sand-pot, and a steel pen. The Cappellano sits before these implements, takes a sheet of pink paper from a drawer, dips the pen in the ink, shakes it, writes the date, and awaits further

orders of Bianca, who stands smiling to herself in a

corner.

She has a blooming, winsome face, grey eyes that are soft and shady, and crisply waving hair; she has full lips, too, and lovely rows of white gleaming teeth, and she laughs as she pulls a letter from her pocket.

'This is the one which he wrote to me,' she continues. 'Perhaps you may like to see it, that you may know the style that will fit him best.'

'No, no! my daughter; I have written many a loveletter, and can trust to my own sense,' grumbles the scrivano, as he sets pens and paper in order, for he has his own well-worn phrases ready flowing to hand, and would be greatly discomfited at having to invent any new ones. He puts on his spectacles, smoothes the fair sheet. of paper, and, dipping his pen in the ink, again glances up at the girl for instructions. She meanwhile stands awkwardly before him, smiling to herself, and ejaculating beneath her breath, as she twirls her apron mechanically round finger and thumb.

'But I never said it was a love-letter,' she says at last, laughing again.

'Eh, well, well, my daughter. A letter to a gallant, then? What matter? it's all the same thing. Tell me

his name, and whether you mean to have him or no, and then leave the rest to me.'