table, and bustling round the room to make things look a little smarter
than they ordinarily did; "he may frequent grander wine-houses than
this, but he will hardly find better liquor."

"Poverina!--Don't think that the podestà comes here on any such errand;
he comes to meet _me,_" answered 'Maso, with an indulgent smile; "he
takes his wine too often on the heights, to wish to come as low as this
after a glass. Friends of mine _(amigi mii),_ there is wine up at that
house, that, when the oil is once out of the neck of the flask[2], goes
down a man's throat as smoothly as if it were all oil itself! I could
drink a flask of it without once stopping to take breath. It is that
liquor which makes the nobles so light and airy."

[2] It is a practice in Tuscany to put a few drops of oil in the neck of
each flask of the more delicate wines, to exclude the air.

"I know the washy stuff," put in Benedetta, with more warmth than she
was used to betray to her customers; "well may you call it smooth, a
good spring running near each of the wine-presses that have made it. I
have seen some of it that even oil would not float on!"

This assertion was a fair counterpoise to that of the sail, being about
as true. But Benedetta had too much experience in the inconstancy of
men, not to be aware that if the three or four customers who were
present should seriously take up the notion that the island contained
any better liquor than that she habitually placed before them, her
value might be sensibly diminished in their eyes. As became a woman who
had to struggle singly with the world, too, her native shrewdness taught
her, that the best moment to refute a calumny was to stop it as soon as
it began to circulate, and her answer was as warm in manner as it was