"It is a lovely night."

"Si, Signora."

He took another whiff, and turned his great eyes here and there,
looking about the room. Hermione began to wonder what he had to say to
her. She was certain that he had come to her for some reason other
than just to ask if she had need of him.

"It does the Signorina good to get a breath of air before she goes to
bed," Hermione added, after a moment of silence. "It makes her sleep."

"Si, Signora."

He still stood calmly beside her, but now he looked at her with the
odd directness which had been characteristic of him as a boy, and
which he had not lost as a man.

"The Signorina is getting quite big, Signora," he said. "Have you
noticed? Per Dio! In Sicily, if the Signorina was a Sicilian, the
giovinotti would be asking to marry her."

"Ah, but, Gaspare, the Signorina is not a Sicilian," she said. "She is
English, you know, and English girls do not generally think of such
things till they are much older than Sicilians."

"But, Signora," said Gaspare, with the bluntness which in him was
never rudeness, but merely the sincerity which he considered due to
his Padrona--due also to himself, "my Padrone was like a real