is positively bursting! We might go out and buy half a dozen
handkerchiefs, just to show him that we have begun. Do you think a few
handkerchiefs would quiet him, my love? You could always use them
afterwards--a dozen would be too many--"

"Bacchus!" exclaimed Lucia, "I have only one nose."

"It is a pity," answered her mother rather irrelevantly. "After all,
handkerchiefs are the cheapest things, and if we spread them out, all
six, on the green sofa, they will make a certain effect--these men! One
must deceive them, my child."

"Suppose we did another thing," began Lucia, looking out of the window.
"We might get some things--in earnest, good things. They will always do
for the wedding with Tista. Meanwhile, papa will of course have to
change his mind, and then it will be all right."

"What genius!" cried the Signora Pandolfi. "Oh, Lucia! You have found
it! And then we can just step into the workshop on our way--that will
reassure your father."

"Perhaps, after all, it would be better to go and tell him the truth,"
said Lucia, beginning to walk slowly up and down the room. "He must know
it, sooner or later."

"Are you mad, Lucia?" exclaimed her mother, holding up her hands in
horror. "Just think how he would act if you went and faced him!"

"Then why not go and find Uncle Paolo?" suggested the girl. "He will
know what is best to be done, and will help us, you may be sure. Of