ucked at on
the other side: a voice was sibilating: 'S-s-signorina.' She allowed
herself to be drawn out of the light of the open doorway, having no
suspicion and no fear. 'Signorina, here is chocolate.' She beheld two
hands in cup-shape, surcharged with packets of Turin chocolate.

'Lugi, it is you?'

The Motterone spy screwed his eyelids to an expression of the shrewdest
secresy.

'Hist! signorina. Take some. You shall have all, but wait:--by-and-by.
Aha! you look at my eyes as you did on the Monterone, because one of them
takes the shoulder-view; but, the truth is, my father was a
contrabandist, and had his eye in his ear when the frontier guard sent a
bullet through his back, cotton-bags and cutleries, and all! I inherit
from him, and have been wry-eyed ever since. How does that touch a man's
honesty, signorina? Not at all. Don't even suspect that you won't
appreciate Luigi by-and-by. So, you won't ask me a word, signorina, but
up you go to the maestro:--signorina, I swear I am your faithful
servant--up to the maestro, and down first. Come down first not
last:--first. Let the other one come down after you; and you come down
first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and here, 'Luigi displayed a
black veil, the common head-dress of the Milanese women, and twisted his
fingers round and round on his forehead to personate the horns of the
veil; 'take it, signorina; you know how to wear it. Luigi and the saints
watch over you.' Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil
and a packet of chocolate.

'If I am watched over by the saints and Luigi,' she thought, and bit at
the chocolate.

When the door had closed upon her, Luigi resumed his station near it,
warily casting his glances along the house-fronts, and moving his springy
little legs like a heath-cock alert. They carried him sharp to an
opposite corner of the street at a noise of some one running exposed to
all eyes right down the middle of the road, straight to the house: in
which foolish person he discerned Beppo, all of whose proceedings Luigi
observed and commented on from the safe obscurity under eaves and
starlight, while Beppo was in the light of the lamps. 'You thunder at the
door, my Beppo. You are a fire-balloon: you are going to burn yourself up
with what you carry. You think you can do something, because you read
books and frequent the talking theatres--fourteen syllables to a word.
Mother of heaven! will you never learn anything from natural