the domes and pinnacles of the Santo with fire, she sang full diapason
with that careless fling of the voice, that happy rapture, that bravura
which makes the listener's heart go near to burst with her joy. If rain
made the leaves to droop, or scudded in sheets along the causeways, she
sang plaintively, the wounded, aggrieved, hurt notes of the nightingale.
Her song then would be some old-remembered sorrow of her land--of
Ginevra degli Almieri, the wandering wife; of the Donna Lombarda, who
poisoned her lover; or of the Countess Costanza's violated vow. So she
shared confidences with the weather, and so unbosomed herself to nature
and to God. Meantime she was as busy as a nesting-bird. She made her
doctor's chocolate, and took it in to him with the gazette or the news-
sheet; she would darn a hole in my stocking, on my leg, without pricking
me at all, look me over, brush me, re-tie my hair, pat me into order
with a critical eye, and send me off to my classes or study with a sage
counsel to mind my books, and a friendly nod over her shoulder as we
each went our ways. She would go to mass at the Santo, to market in the
Piazza; she would cheapen a dress-length, chat with a priest, admonish
old Nonna, the woman of the house--all before seven o'clock in the
morning; and not before then would she so much as sip a glass of coffee
or nibble a crust of bread. On Sundays and Festas she took her husband's
arm and went to church as befitted, wearing her glazed gown of silver
grey, her black lace zendado. She took a fan as well as a service-book--
and happy was I to carry them for her; she had lace mittens on her hands
and a fine three-cornered hat on her head. She looked then what she
truly was, the thrifty young housewife, who, if she was as lovely as the
summer's dawn, was so only by the way. And thrifty she proved herself.
For when she had kneeled and crossed herself twice towards the altar,
she pulled up the shining silk gown all about her middle and sat down
upon her petticoat.