e,[T] "how you dare make
cry the signorina?" And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives
sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of Italian
abuse, that the boy turned red and white in a breath with rage and
perplexity.

Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and, with
true feminine caprice, now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger, and,
finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a
kindness at once child-like and queenly, and in the prettiest imaginable
mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I cannot pretend
to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't mind him. I dare
say it was all my fault, only I did not understand you: are not these
things weeds?"

"No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully
at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds, and they sell very well at this
time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should
like to see who's to prevent it."

Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum of the earth," by a
foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he conceived
his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor,
and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for he
had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which the
Tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry
disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand,
the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half
ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.

Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away and sat down at a
distance. "I don't see," thought he, "why there should be rich and poor,
master and servant." Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's
Political Sermon.

An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work.
Jackeymo was no longer in the garden; he had gone to the fields; but
Riccabocca was standing by the celery-bed, and holding the red silk
umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground looking up at her father
with those eyes already so full of intelligence, and love, and soul.

"Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been telling me that she
has been very naughty, and Giacomo very unjust to you. Forgive them
both."

Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscence of tracts Nos.
1 and 2,--

"Like the baseless