remained hesitating on the garden path, where white and red stocks
were blossoming.

"Mother," said Adone, "here is a hungry child. Give her, in your
kindness, some broth and bread."

Clelia Alba came out into the entrance, and saw the little girl with
some displeasure. She was kind and charitable, but she did not love
beggars and vagabonds, and this half-naked female tatterdemalion
offended her sense of decency and probity, and her pride of sex. She
was herself a stately and handsome woman.

"The child is famished," said Adone, seeing his mother's displeasure.

"She shall eat then, but let her eat outside," said Clelia Alba, and
went back into the kitchen.

Nerina waited by the threshold, timid and mute and humble, like a
lost dog; her eyes alone expressed overwhelming emotions: fear and
hope and one ungovernable appetite, hunger.

Clelia Alba came out in a few minutes with a bowl of hot broth made
of herbs, and a large piece of maize-flour bread.

"Take them," she said to her son.

Adone took them from her, and gave them to the child.

"Sit and eat here," he said, pointing to a stone settle by the wall
under the rose of four seasons.