e there from Milan, where the disease had broken out; so
Don Giuseppe had arranged to have all provisions for the kitchen come
from Porlezza instead of Lugano, and had entrusted the commission to
Giacomo Panighet, the postman, who brought the letters to Valsolda, not
three times a day, as at present, but twice a week, as was the
comfortable custom in the little world of long ago. Now, not five
minutes before Signora Pasotti's arrival, Giacomo Panighet had brought
the usual basket, and in the bottom of that basket, beneath the
cabbages, they had discovered a note addressed to Don Giuseppe. It ran
as follows:--

"You, who play at primero with Don Franco Maironi, should warn
him that the air of Lugano is far better than the air of Oria.

"TIVANO."

Maria silently exhibited the basket, which was still full, to Signora
Pasotti, and by clever acting illustrated the manner of discovery of the
letter, which she gave her to read.

As soon as the deaf woman had finished reading, a strange, indescribable
pantomime began between the three. Maria and Don Giuseppe, by dint of
gesticulations and rollings of their eyes, expressed their surprise and
terror; Barborin, half frightened, half dazed, stared open-mouthed, from
one to the other, the letter still in her hand, as if she had
understood. As a matter of fact she had made out only that the letter
must be terrible. Presently a thought struck her. She held the letter
out to Don Giuseppe with her left hand, while with her right forefinger
she pointed to the word _Franco_; then she crossed her wrists with a
questioning gesture; and as the others, recognising that the sign meant
handcuffs, nodded their heads violently in confirmation, she became half
frenzied, so great was her affection for Luisa, and forgetting the
matter that had brought her there, she explained by signs, as if both
the others had been deaf also, that she would go straight to Oria, see
Don Franco, and give him the letter.

She started to rush away, cramming the letter into her pocket, and with
hardly a word of leave-taking to Don Giuseppe and Maria, who, greatly
distressed, were trying in vain to get hold of her, to detain her and
recommend all possible precautions. But she slipped through their
fingers, and her great, tall bonnet quivering, her old grey skirt
dragging, set off at a trot towards Oria, where she arrived quite out of
breath, with her head full of gendarmes, inspections, scenes of