but stories of the dying and the
dead?"

Pietro put on an air that was almost apologetic.

"Well, truly!" he answered, resignedly--"very little else. But what
would you, amico? It is the plague and the will of God."

As he said the last words my gaze was caught and riveted by the figure
of a man strolling leisurely past the door of the cafe. It was Guido
Ferrari--my friend! I would have rushed out to speak to him--but
something in his look and manner checked the impulse as it rose in me.
He was walking very slowly, smoking a cigar as he went; there was a
smile on his face, and in his coat he wore a freshly-gathered rose La
Gloire de France, similar to those that grew in such profusion on the
upper terrace of my villa. I stared at him as he passed--my feelings
underwent a kind of shock. He looked perfectly happy and tranquil,
happier indeed than ever I remembered to have seen him, and yet--and
yet, according to HIS knowledge, I, his best friend, had died only
yesterday! With this sorrow fresh upon him, he could smile like a man
going to a festa, and wear a coral-pink rose, which surely was no sign
of mourning! For one moment I felt hurt, the next, I laughed at my own
sensitiveness. After all, what of the smile, what of the rose! A man
could not always be answerable for the expression of his countenance,
and as for the flower, he might have gathered it en passent, without
thinking, or what was still more likely, the child Stella might have
given it to him, in which case he would have worn it to please her. He
displayed no badge of mourning? True!--but then consider--I had only
died yesterday! There had been no time to procure all those outward
appurtenances of woe which social customs rendered necessary, but which
were no infallible sign of the heart's sincerity. Satisfied with my own
self-reasoning I made no attempt to follow Guido in his walk--I let him
go on his way unconscious of my existence. I would wait, I thought,
till the evening--then everything would be explained.

I turned to the landlord. "How much to pay?" I asked.

"What you will, amico" he replied--"I am never hard on the fisher
folk--but times are bad, or you would be welcome to a breakfast for
nothing. Many and many a day have I done as much for men of your craft,
and the blessed Cipriano who is gone used to say that St. Peter would
remember me for it. It is true the Madonna gives a special blessing if
one looks after the fishers, because all the h